Google This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http : //books . google . com/| SEEIOUS POEMS POEMS THOMAS HOOD Edited by ALFRED AINGER VOL. I SEXIOUS POEMS Hontian MACMILLAN AND CO., LmrTEo 1897 ■(■-c-x^ ?t^*I3-< I *£:?• 7X:z^ ■.■ ■-».■. ■ '■ - •■ ■ 'Lk. •. ' :f POEMS THOMAS HOOD Edited by ALFRED AINGER VOL. I SERIOUS POEMS 3Lont)an MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1S97 POEMS inn THOMAS HOOD Edited by ALFRED AINGER VOL. I SERIOUS POEMS Eantion MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 1897 AUHghlsnm-t^d H77-/ A3 V.I PREFATORY NOTE The chief sources to which I have been indebted in writing my short Memoir of Hood are the Biography, in two volumes, by his son and daughter ; his own "Literary Eeminiscences " in the first. series of HoodJs Own ; a little volume, of great interest, by Mr. Alex- ander Elliot, entitled Hood in Scotland ; the Memoir of the first Charles Wentworth Dilke, by his grandson, prefixed to the collection of his essays. Papers of a Critic ; Mr. Spielmann's valuable History of Punch ; and the various obituary and critical notices of Hood published after his death. I have to thank Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart., M.P., for his great courtesy in placing at my disposal manuscript letters of Hood's and other documents illustrating his life, originally belonging to his grandfather, above mentioned. Hood's lifelong friend and counsellor. CONTENTS PAGE To Hope . • ■ • 1 The Departure of Summer • • • 3 The Sea of Death (a Fragment) • • 7 To AN Absentee . • • • 9 Lyous the Centaur (from an UnroUec [ Manuscript o f ApoUonius Curius) • • « 10 The Two Peacocks of Bedfont • ■ 22 Hymn to the Sun ■ • 29 Midnight . 1 • 30 To a Sleeping Child— I . . 30 To a Sleeping Child — II 1 • 31 To Fancy . • 31 -J^jR_JS£a— — • 32 To A False Friend • 1 • 33 Ode — Autumn • 1 34 Sonnets— Silence . . 36 Written in Keats's * ' Endjrmion " ■ ■ 36 To an Enthusiast • • • • 37 To A Cold Beauty • • • 37 . Sonnet— Death • • ■ • 38 VUl CONTENTS 1 Serenade ...... PAGE 89 Verses in an Album . . . . . 39 The Forsaken ..... 40 Song ...... 41 Song ...... 42 Birthday Verses .... 43 I Love Thee ..... 44 Lines ...... 45 False Poets and True — To Wordsworth 45 The Two Swans ..... 46 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy 67 Song ...... 62 The Water Lady .... 63 Autumn ....... 64 1 remember, I remember . . . . 65 The Poet's Portion .... 66 Ode to the Moon .... 67 Sonnet — Written in a Volume of Shakspeare 70 A Retrospective Review 71 Ballad ...... 75 Time, Hope, and Memory . . . . 76 Flowers ....... 77 Ballad ...... 78 / Ruiji ...... 79 NtsjHE Plea of the Midsummer Fairies 80 ■ Hero and Leander .... 122 Ballad ...... 149 Autumn ...... . 150 Ballad ..... . 150 I CONTENTS IX PAOK The Exile ...... 162 To ....... 153 Ode to Melancholy . . . .164 Sonnets— * By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts * . . 168 To my Wife . . . .168 On receiving a Gift . .169 * Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak ' .169 !.Thb Dream of Euoene Arail . . . .160 Sonnet — For the 14th of February . . 167 Bhe Death- Bed ...... 168 lntioipation . . .169 To a Child embracing his Mother . .171 Stanzas (from Tylney HcUl) . .172 Sonnet to Ocean . .172 To f composed at Rotterdam . .173 Lines, on seeing my wife and two children sleeping in the same chamber ..... 176 Stanzas ....... 176 Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq. ^ . 177- To MY Daughter, on her Birthday 193 ^"^^mAIiss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg . 194 The Lee Shore ...... 279 Sonnet . .280 The Elm Tree . . .281 Lear . . .297 I Sonnet . . 298 •a^jShe Song of the Sh^rt .... 299 the Paupers uhrisTMjb* Carol 302 X CONTENTS .^.-^^HE Haunted House PAOB . 304 The Mary . 316 The Lady's Dream . 319 X The Key . . . . , . 323 . 328 * ^^HE Bridge of Sighs . 331 v^ The LAY OP THE Labourer . 335 J Stanzas . . . . , . 339 Notes . . . . . . 341 Index to Poems . . . . . 349 Index of First Lines . . 353 .r •' MEMOIR (1799—1821) It is a noticeable fact, testifying, perhaps, how far with Thomas Hood the reputation of the humorist has eclipsed that of the poet, that the abbreviated form of his Christian name by which he is so frequently called seems to be of posthumous origin. There is no evidence that he was known in his lifetime even to his intimate friends as " Tom " Hood, and his wife, after a common practice of that day, always wrote of him in her letters as " Hood." Acting therefore on the principle enunciated by the late Mr. Albert Smith that **you have no right to take liberties with a gentleman's name because he makes you laugh," I enter my humble protest at starting against a too common custom ; and most surely there was little in the temperament of the man, or the character of his genius, to justify the familiarity, or to excuse it. Hood was of Scottish descent, his grandfather having been a humble tiller of the soil near Errol, a village on the north bank of the Tay, between Perth and Dimdee. A son of this Hood, after serving his apprenticeship to a bookseller in Dundee, proceeded to London, and making his way by industry and a certain feeling for literature, finally established a publishing business in the Poultry, XU MEMOIR ia partnership with a Mr. Vernor. He seems to have prospered fairly in most ways save in his own bodily health, and that of his family. He had many children, several of whom died in infancy, or lived to exhibit some promise, and then succumbed to the sad inheritance of consumption. The eldest son, James, died in this way, and the father, while tending his son, took the fatal chill which rapidly resulted in his own death. They both died in the autumn of 1811, and Thomas was left the only surviving son. He was rather over twelve years of age, having been born in his father's house in the Poultry on the 23rd of May 1799. When Hood, in 1839, re-issued the contents of several years' "Comic Annuals" in the new form which he entitled HoocTs Own, he added, at his publisher's request, certain autobiographical recollections, which are our chief author- ity for these earlier years. He there tells us that his first school was in Tokenhouse Yard, a convenient distance for a native of the Poultry, and was kept by two maiden ladies of the name of Hogsflesh. "The circumstance," he adds, " would be scarcely worth mentioning, but that, being a day-boarder, and taking my dinner with the family, I became aware of a Baconian brother, who was never mentioned except by his initial, and was probably the prototype of the sensitive ' Mr. H.' in Lamb's unfortunate farce." From this elementary training Hood was trans- ferred in due course to a well-known school at Clapham — the "Prospect House Academy" he was afterwards to celebrate in memorable verse : — Ay, that's the very house. I know Its ugly windows, ten a-row ! Its chimneys in the rear ! And there's the iron rod so high That drew the thunder from the sky And turned our table-beer ! Hood, looking back in later years on these school experiences, did not acknowledge much to be grateful for. Prospect House, he said, was "one of those places MEMOIK XIU /improperly called semi-naries, because they do not half teach anything"; and confessed that all he learned of value was gained in his holiday seasons, or his play hours, when he could gratify an insatiable appetite for general reading, and that he was "an idler, lounger, tattler, rambler, spectator, anything rather than a student." On the death of his father, in 1811, his mother removed to Islington, and Thomas Hood once more changed his school, this time to "a house, formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, over a grocer's shop, up two pair of stairs, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he would have been called in his native land." The master was a pedant and an eccentric, but loved his craft, and speedily recognised in young Hood a boy who was keen to learn. Hood admits that he at last made some progress even in school subjects. "I picked up some Latin, was a tolerable English grammarian, and so good a French scholar that I earned a few guineas — my first literary fee — by revising a new edition of Paul et Virginie for the Press." The exact chronology of Hood's earlier history is hard to fix. He cared as little about dates as his friend Elia, and gives us little or no help in his Literary Reminis- cences. His son and daughter, when writing their father's life, seem to have been much in the dark as to his youthful days, and not even to have taken advantage of such light as was available. It was in 1811 that Mrs. Hood and her family removed to Islington, and it was about three years later that her son Thomas was sent away, for reasons of health, to his father's relations in Dundee. How these intervening years are to be appro- priated remains uncertain. For a time he was under the care of the " Dominie " just named, and subsequently, according to his own autobiographical fragment (which his son and daughter, oddly enough, treat as of doubtful authority), was placed in a merchant's counting-house in the City. Hood's account of matters is, however, circum- XIV MEMOIR stantial, and hardly to be ignored. "A friend of the family," he writes, " having taken a fancy to me, proposed to initiate me in those profitable mercantile mysteries which enabled Sir Thomas Gresham to gild his grass- hopper." But it was apparently not long before his health, never robust, began to suffer from confinement to the desk and the lofty stool. "My spirits daily became a shade lower, my flesh was held less and less firmly — in short, in the language of the price-current, it was expected that I must 'submit to a decline.' The doctors who were called in declared imperatively that a mercantile life would be the death of me." And on their recom- mendation the boy was despatched in a Scotch smack to the fresh sea breezes' and a life of entire holiday among his kinsfolk in Dundee. Hood remained in the north for two or three years, to the great advantage of his bodily health. He boated and fished, and lived generally an out-door life, and was also able to gratify to the full his love of miscellaneous reading. He devoured fiction and the drama and poetry, and whatever else the local libraries afforded him, and made some first experiments in prose and verse in the columns of local newspapers and magazines. He seems to have returned to London, with his health re-established, in 1818, and from that time until 1821 he industriously s^t himself to acquire that art of draughtsmanship which was ultimately to serve him in good stead in the lighter walks of literature. Hood's mother was sister to a Mr. Sands, an engraver of repute, and Hood was placed under his uncle's instruction. We must suppose that he showed from earliest years a certain turn for caricature. He certainly never in after-life prided himself upon any higher artistic gifts. On the contrary, he asserts that, like the tape-tied curtains mentioned by Mr. Pope, he was "never meant to draw." In a sense this was true. Whatever else he acquired through practice as an en- graver, he never succeeded in mastering the difficulties of the human figure. For four years, first with his uncle, MEMOIR XV and later with the Brothers Le Keux, he worked steadily at his art. In a letter to a Dundee friend, dated 1821, he speaks of some recent success with a plate as " the result of four years' learning and experience in the art." He adds, " I was but two years old in engraving when I set up for myself, and have been two more on my own fingers ; and as some of my friends seemed doubtful as to the success of such an experiment, I am very happy and somewhat proud of this result, in which I have obtained one object of my ambition." Such success, however, as he had attained was not sufficient to encourage him to persevere. The truth seems to be that the passion for literature was rapidly supplanting all others. He continued to practise verse- writing, and to devote his leisure to literary pursuits, while following conscientiously the craft he had adopted as his livelihood ; but the " bowl," as he expressed it, " had at last found its natural bias." *' While thus playing at literature, an event was ripening which was to intro- duce me to authorship in earnest, and make the muse, with whom I had only flirted, my companion for life. In the beginning of the year 1821 a memorable duel, originating in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place at Chalk Farm, and terminated in the death of Mr. John Scott, the able editor of the London Magazine. The melan- choly result excited great interest, in which I fully participated, little dreaming that his catastrophe involved any consequences of importance to myself. But on the loss of its conductor the periodical passed into other hands. The new proprietors were my friends ; they sent for me, and after some preliminaries I was duly installed as a sort of sub-editor of the London Magazine ^ It was in the summer of 1821 that the Magazine entered on its new lease of life, with Messrs. Taylor and Hessey as publishers and editors, and Thomas Hood in the post of sub-editor. He was only twenty-two, and the enthusiasm with which he entered on the hazardous path of literature was already tempered by anxiety, from XVI MEMOIR which to the end of his life he was never free, as to his htittltlj, ami by a grave family bereavement which occurred at tho very outset. Writing to a friend in October 1821, Hood HayH — "I have sustained a very severe and irre- parable loHS in the death of my dear mother about three months since, by which event a serious charge has devolved upon me; and I have all the concern of a liouHohold and a family of four sisters — a charge which CUM n(5vor be a light one." The charge was indeed lunvvy, and the general outlook never of the brightest. Hut lie applied himself at once to his new duties with tlio cheerful courage that never forsook him even in his gravest necessities. These duties were at first mainly routine and mechanical, but the personal association with poets and men of letters, who had been hitherto but names to him, brought him the keenest happiness. ** Even the more irksome parts of authorship," he tells ufl, "such as the correction of the press, were to me labours of love. I received a revise from Mr. Baldwin's Mr. Parker, as if it had been a proof of his regard; forgave him all his slips, and really thought that printers' devils were not so black as they are painted. But my top-gallant glory was in ' our contributors.' " And these contributors included Lajnb and Hazlitt, Gary and Procter, John Hamilton Reynolds and Allan Cunningham. Moreover, from the first Hood was encouraged to practise whatever literary faculty was in him. Not only was a free hand given him as to the humorous " Notices to Correspondents," with which each number of the magazine was prefaced, but happily his publishers (who were their own editors), recognising in their sub- ordinate talents more worthy of cultivation, allowed him from the beginning to contribute verse to the magazine, though without his signature. The very first number with which he was connected contains a poem by Hood, never acknowledged by him in life, or recognised by his editors until many years after his death, when the sur- viving publisher, Mr. Hessey, disclosed the authorship to MEMOIR XVU Hood's son and daughter. This little ode, " To Hope," appeared in the July number of the Limdon for 1821, and has a peculiarly pathetic interest. From the merely literary standpoint it shows a great advance upon any- thing he had already printed. He shows hifiiself to have already formed something like a style, though differing materially from his second manner, when the romantic spell of Keats had begun to work in him. But a deeper interest lies in the young poet's thus giving "sad presage of his future years," and at the age of twenty-two, with all the world before him, only hoping "against hope." And this same melancholy was to colour all his serious, and much of his humorous, verse for the remainder of his life : — But thou canst sing of love no more, For Celia showed that dream was vain — And many a fancied bliss is o'er, That comes not e'en in dreams again. Alas ! alas ! How pleasures pass, And leave thee now no subject, save The peace and bliss beyond the grave. It was in the London Magazine for July 1821 that Hood's first contribution appeared. The same number contained a review of a new volume of poems by one who was later to be allied with Hood by marriage, and also largely to determine Hood's poetic manner during the years that followed — The Garden of Florence, by John Hamilton Reynolds, then writing under the name of "John Hamilton." Reynolds had been the intimate friend and disciple of Keats. John Keats had already passed away, his suffering life having closed at Rome in February of this year. It does not appear that Hood ever met him in the flesh, but the influence of Keats was as surely to be traced in Hood's subsequent verse as in the little volume by Alfred Tennyson published ten years later. Another writer destined to influence Hood's future as markedly, though in quite other ways, had been a regular contributor to the magazine for a year XVlll MEMOIR past, and was already undoubtedly its enief glory. The essays of Elia were in full career, and the number that published Hood's first poem contained also the exquisite prose idyll, *' Mackery End in Hertfordshire." The first introduction to Lamb was an epoch in Hood's life ; and the manner of it, as recounted by Hood himself, so characteristic of both men, and so interesting as a contri- bution to our impressions of Lamb's personality, that no apology is required for quoting it here : — *'I was sitting one morning beside our editor, busily correcting proofs, when a visitor was announced, whose name, grumbled by a low ventriloquial voice like Tom Pipes calling from the hold through the hatchway, did not resound distinctly on my tympanum. However, the door opened, and in came a stranger, a figure remarkable at a glance, with a fine head on a small spare body supported by two almost immaterial legs. He was clothed in sables of a byegone fashion, but there was something wanting — or something present — about him that certified that he was neither a divine, nor a physician, nor a schoolmaster ; from a certain neatness and sobriety in his dress, coupled with his sedate bearing, he might have been taken, but that such a costume would be anomalous, for a Qicaker in black. He looked still more like (what he really was) a literary modern antique, a new-old author, a living anachronism, contemporary at once with Burton the elder and Colman the younger. Meanwhile he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, his walk was plantigrade, and with a cheer- ful * How d'ye ? ' and one of the blandest, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly countenance, held out two fingers to the editor. . . . After the literary business had been settled the editor invited his contributor to dinner, adding, *We shall have a hare.' — 'And — and — and — and many friends.' The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the allusion, were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars will perchance have recognised already as the delightful essayist, the capital MEMOIR XIX critic, the pleasant wit and humorist, the delicate- minded and large-hearted Charles Lamb ! He was shy, like myself, with strangers, so that despite my yearnings our first meeting scarcely amounted to an introduction. We were both at dinner, amongst the host's many friends, but our acquaintance got no further, in spite of a desperate attempt on my part to attract his notice. His complaint of the Decay of Beggars presented another chance; I wrote, on coarse paper and in ragged English, a letter of thanks to him as if from one of his mendicant clients, but it produced no effect. I had given up all hope, when one night, sitting sick and sad in my. bedroom, racked with the rheumatism, the door was suddenly opened, the well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any formality, and with a cheerful ' Well, boy, how are you ? ' and the bland, sweet smile, extended the two fingers. They were eagerly clutched, of course, and from that hour we were friends." From that hour Charles Lamb was to be Thomas Hood's dearest friend, and the god of his literary idolatry. Ten years later. Hood, when on the eve of an involuntary migration to the Khine — there (if it might be) to mend his broken fortunes — was among those who on that sad December day stood round Lamb's grave in Edmonton churchyard. " It may be a dangerous confession to make," he wrote five years afterwards, "but I shed no tear, and scarcely did a sigh escape from my bosom. There were many sources of comfort. He had not died young. He had happily gone before that noble sister, who, not in selfishness, but the devotion of a unique affection, would have prayed to survive him but for a day, lest he should miss that tender care which had watched over him upwards from a little child." The words were written in the Literary Reminiscences con- tributed to Hood's Own in 1839 ; and in Lewis's portrait of the author, prefixed to the same work, the volume on which Hood's arm is depicted as resting, has for its superscription "Elia." 6 XX MEMOIR II (1821—1825) It was especially at the monthly dinners at which Taylor and Hessey gathered their chief contributors about them, that Hood was now to form congenial friendships and find a stimulus and encouragement to authorship which rapidly bore fruit. In his "Literary Reminiscences" he recalls with enthusiasm how he revelled in opportunities of converse with men so various and interesting as Lamb and Clare, Allan Cunningham and Cary, John Hamilton Reynolds and De Quincey. And when Charles and Mary Lamb removed to Colebrooke Row, Islington, in 1823, and thus became his near neighbours. Hood had the great delight of meeting occasionally Wordsworth and Coleridge. These were probably the happiest days of Hood's life, or at least the days freest from anxiety. With a fixed salary, and leisure to write, the money-pinch was as yet unfelt. For these four years of Hood's life, preceding his marriage in 1825, there is little or no biographical material. He was still living at Islington with one or more of his sisters, and the earliest friendship we know him to have formed was with John Hamilton Reynolds, a frequent contributor to the London, under the name of " Edward Herbert." Reynolds, then a young man of six-and- twenty, lived with his father and sisters in that quarter of the City of London called " Little Britain," a residence handy for Christ's Hospital, where his father held the post of chief writing-master. Hood seems to have been drawn to Reynolds in the first instance by a certain poetical affinity, as well as by certain humorous tendencies in common. Reynolds had already published more than one volume of verse, and had passed from an earlier stage in which he wrote under the spell of Byron, to being the intimate friend and poetic follower of Keats. MEMOIR XXI His latest and ripest poetic fruit had appeared in the little volume The Garden of Florence^ in the very year of Hood's joining the magazine. The results of his friendship with Reynolds, and of the influence of Keats transmitted through Reynolds, were speedily to appear. Indeed the history of Hood for those next four years is that of a rapid development of poetic style. After the lines "To Hope," in the magazine for July 1821, nothing more appeared from his pen until the November following, when he printed some fluent verses (signed "Incog.") called the " Departure of Summer," showing considerable command of the lavish descriptive faculty of Keats, but with slight originality of thought or treatment. An interval of four months again elapsed, and a fragment entitled " The Sea of Death " (this time signed with three asterisks) exhibited a distinct increase of imagina- tion, and that strange bias towards thoughts of decay and death which was to mark Hood's genius through life. The manner is again that of Keats and Reynolds, though divergences of temperament are clearly per- ceptible, and there are felicities of expression which he had not before attained, such as in the concluding lines : — and with them, Time Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face Of a dark dial in a sunless place. Some lines in the following number of the magazine, " To an Absentee " (surely addressed to Jane Reynolds), show the more simple and genial side of Hood's invention, and that happy reconciliation, in the last stanza, of poetry and wit that was so essentially his own : — O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea, Through all the miles that stretch between, My thoughts must fly to rest on thee, And would, though worlds should intervene. Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks, The farther we are forced apart, Affection's firm, elastic links But bind the closer round the heart. XXll MEMOIR For now we sever each ftt)m each, I learn what I have lost iu thee ; Alas ! that nothing else could teach How great indeed my love should bo. Farewell ! I did not know thy worth, But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized. So angels walked unknown on earth, But when they flew were recognised. Once more, after an interval (in August 1822), there appeared in the magazine a poem of Hood's, marking an extraordinary, and all but inexplicable, advance upon anything he had yet written. He was indeed advancing, in more than one sense, by leaps and bounds, for the buoyant anapaests he employed — certainly not borrowed from Keats or Reynolds, though probably from Leigh Hunt or an early ode of Shelley's — give it a position quite unique among Hood's poems. " Lycus the Centaur " was, as usual, without any signature, and was not even furnished with the brief "argument," so necessary for its elucidation, which its author prefixed to it when reprinted in a volume in 1827. If the poem attracted no attention it was hardly to the discredit of the reading public of that day, for, even with the assistance of a prose " argument " as interpreter, the poem has obscurities that call for careful and repeated perusal. Although Hood did not borrow anyone of Keats's characteristic metres, the lush and opulent diction of the poem is thoroughly Keatsian, as well as the almost audacious use of enjambement in the metre ; and it is more than probable that a poem or poems of Keats's suggested to Hood this experiment of a Greek mythological legend dealing with magic and magicians. Keats's latest volume had included " Lamia," a kindred story of enchantment which the poet had found in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, one of those stories, as Mr. Sidney Colvin has said, "where Greek life and legend come nearest to the mediaeval" A young Greek gentleman, of the name of Lycius, having fallen in love with a fair Phoenician, finally marries her, only to discover. MEMOIR XXlll through an officious friend, after some time of happy married life, that his bride was in reality a " Lamia " — a serpent — upon which discovery the bride and her possessions instantly vanish, to leave the husband fatally smitten. Burton indicates the source of the legend as from " Philostratus in his fourth Book de vitd Apollonii " — ApoUonius being the philosophic friend who had wrecked the happiness of the young couple. Hood, when including "Lycus the Centaur" in his volume of 1827, had possibly been advised to supply (as Keats had done at the end of " Lamia ") some explanatory notes ; and accordingly, in addition to the brief argument just mentioned, he gravely informed his readers that the legend was to be found in "an unrolled manuscript of ApoUonius Curius," an authority which, it is needless to add, only existed in his own facetious imagination. The " ApoUonius," as we have seen, he owed to Keats ; the "Curius" is a characteristic stroke of Hood's peculiar humour. The Centaur's name, it will also be noticed, is but one letter removed from that of Keats's hero. Hood's argument, even when thus tardily supplied, was too brief, and hardly explicit enough to help the reader much. It ran as follows : — "Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water-Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse ; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur." What the argument fails to make clear is that Circe herself burned with an unrequited passion for Lycus, and therefore prepared the incantation for purposes of revenge. Circe is, in fact, a " Belle Dame sans merci," and it is quite possible that the lyric masterpiece of Keats so named had suggested to Hood the similar enchantment of a group of lovers : — XXIV MEMOIR I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death -pale were they all. They cried, " La Belle Dame sans merci " Hath thee in thrall — only that in the case of the unhappy Lycus the "pale kings and princes" around him were transformed to beasts. Nor does the argument include any reference to the touching denouement of the story. The transformed Lycus sees his dishonoured shape for the first time reflected in the stream of his adoring Nymph : — Then I asked of the wave. What monster I was, and it trembled and gave The true shape of my grief, and I turned with my face From all waters for ever, and fled through that place, Till with horror more strong than all magic I passed Its bounds, and the world was before me at last. Then the unhappy Centaur "wanders in sorrow," yearning for the society and converse of men, and yet ashamed to face them — hearing afar off the voices of human triumphs and joys, and yet only daring to steal secretly near the city and listen in ambush to the accents of human loves and cares, not venturing to ask or to offer sympathy — one courageous child alone daring to take pity on him : — For the haunters of fields they all shunned me by flight. The men in their horror, the women in friglit ; None ever remained save a child once that sported Among the wild blue-))ells, and playfully courted The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake lay Tight strangled, because it had hissed him away From the flowers at his finger : he rose and drew near Like a son of Immortals, one bom with no fear. But with strength of black locks and witli eyes azure bright To grow to large manhood of merciful might He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel, And questioned my face with wide eyes ; but when under My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder. He stroked me, antl uttered such kiiKlliness then. That the once love of women, the friendship of men 111 past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss MEMOIR XXV On my heart in its desolate day such as this ! And I yearned at his cheeks in my love, and down bent, And lifted hira up in my arms with intent To kiss him, — but he, cruel-kindly, alas I Held out to my lips a plucked handful of grass ! Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled The stone he indignantly hurled at my head, That dissevered my ear, — but I felt not, whose fate Was to meet more distress in Ms love than his hate. Hood was no scholar. His acquaintance with the myth of Circe was certainly due to some English version of the Odyssey — ^perhaps to his friend Lamb's " Adventures of Ulysses," and the incorporation with it of a new Centaur Legend, wholly of his own invention, deprives the poem of any claim to be taken seriously from the classic stand- point. The germ of the whole poem may, indeed, with probability be assigned to the purely grotesque idea of an incantation, nipped in the bud, producing a corre- sponding hybrid as its result. And yet no one can doubt, after reading such a passage as that just quoted, that notwithstanding this curiously unclassical treat- ment of a classical theme, and all the strange jumble of ancient and modern in the incidents — the imagination of the humorist treading closely upon that of the poet — there is abundant evidence of a genuine poetic imagination pointing to still greater possibilities. Indeed Hood's more thoughtful associates in the magazine at once recognised this fact, and urged him to cultivate his talent, but it was destined to meet with no general recognition. If the yet finer quality of Keats had to wait for any wide appreciation, this was not strange. The same volume of the London contained another poem of Hood's of some length, this time in the stanza of Keats's " Isabella," and clearly modelled upon that poem. " The Two Peacocks of Bedfont " relates a legend, long current in the village of that name in Middlesex, based upon the circumstance that in the churchyard stand some specimens of Topiary work — yew trees shaped, after a familiar fashion, into peacocks. Hood, whose studies in Keats were still XXVI MEMOIR attracting him to topics of enchantment, adopts the legend referred to, according to which the peacocks represented the retributive destinies of two proud and selfish spinsters, whose ostentatious wealth and contempt for their humbler neighbours had once been a scandal to the village. The subject is not specially happy, and the treatment at times conventional, but there is again evident the opulent fancy of his model, although it was not for Hood or Reynolds or any contemporary to rival the matchless felicities of Keats. Hood had caught the prodigal romantic manner, but a certain close and tender observation of nature in treating of country life and " sweet garden scenes " is all his own, and is revealed now and again in such lovely lines as — And in the garden-plot, from day to day, The lily blooms its long white life away. Hood seems to have written no more in the London after June 1823. Mr. Hessey, the publisher, who was still living in 1859, could find no trace of any contribution after that date, and as Mr. Hessey tells us that his acquaintance with Hood ended with the year 1823, we must suppose that his connection with the magazine as sub-editor came also to an end at that time. At the close of the year 1824 the proprietorship of the magazine once more changed hands. How Hood was employed during the year that followed is not clear. His son assigns (but only conjecturally) some half-dozen lyrics to this year, and it is likely that Hood found employment of some kind in journalism. Indeed throughout his life he occasionally wrote theatrical notices and reviews of books. But in 1825 he found himself in a position to marry, and the step was probably made possible, as we shall see, by the success of his first humorous publication, which was practically to determine his chief occupation for the rest of his life. Hood's intimacy with John Hamilton Reynolds had introduced him to the family in Little Britain, and led to his engagement to Jane Reynolds, one J MEMOIR XXVU of the four sisters living under the parental roof. And on 5th May 1825, according to the Parish Register (not 1824, as stated by the son and daughter), Thomas Hood, of the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, was married to Jane Reynolds, in St. Botolph's Church, Aldgate. The church stands only a few yards from the bride's home in Little Britain, and Jane Reynolds was doubtless married from her father's house. Hood's son delicately intimates that the match was not very acceptable to the Reynolds family, and this is not difficult to believe. Hood's prospects of making a livelihood by literature were far from satis- factory, and his health already was precarious-rheumatic attacks being very frequent. The marriage was one of truest affection, and through the long struggle with sickness and poverty that was to follow there is ample evidence of a stedfast devotion on both sides that never weakened. " My own dearest and best " are the open- ing words of most of Hood's letters to his wife. "I never was anything, dearest, till I knew you — and I have been a better, happier, more prosperous man ever since." And Hood never belied this tender assurance either by word or deed. Ill (1825—1827) While Hood had been from time to time writing and publishing serious verse in the columns of the London, he had been practising, also anonymously, a very different talent. From the first it had been part of his duty as sub-editor to reply to correspondents in a page or two prefixed to each number of the Magazine, entitled The Lion^s Head. Where, as in the majority of cases, the contribution thus noticed had to be rejected, the young sub-editor was allowed to dismiss it with some pleasant flippancy, often taking the form of a pun. " Colin has XXVUl MEMOIR sent us a Summer Pastoral, and says that he can supply us with one every month. Has he always got sheep in his pen?" "N. of Margate says he means to send us * a marine subject.' We hope it will be a Mermaid." "G.'s Muse should use Steer's opodeldoc, which is allowed to be excellent for strains" Though not specially brilliant, these plays upon words have the quality which was always to distinguish Hood's puns. However far-fetched, they are droll, and show the humorist as well as the wit. And a few months after he had been in ofl&ce, in November 1821, Hood ventured on a more elaborate experiment in the same direction, modestly concealing his authorship by inserting the verses in The Lion^s Head as an accepted contribution from " an un- known correspondent." They were in the form of an Ode to Dr. Kitchiner, the well-known gastronomist, and author of the Cook^s Oracle, then in the height of his reputation. The Ode is slight and unequal compared with Hood's later eflforts in the same direction, but the concluding verse bears his unmistakable mark : — Ah me, my soul is touched with sorrow To thiuk liow flesh must pass away — So mutton that is warm to-day Is cold and turned to hashes on the morrow ! Farewell ! I would say more, but I Have other fish to fry. The chief interest for us of this jeu d^ esprit lies in the fact that it was to determine the chief direction of Hood's talents for the rest of his life. Out of this Ode to Dr. Kitchiner (or Kitchener, as Hood inevitably spelled it) grew the little collection of similar Odes by Hood and his future brother-in-law, J. H. Reynolds. Reynolds was master of a fluent humorous vein, thinner and altogether less remarkable than Hood's, which he had already exhibited some years earlier in the anticipatory parody of Wordsworth's Peter Bell, destined to become chiefly famous through its having led to a parody of far greater power, Shelley's Peter Bell the Third, The Odes and MEMOIR XXIX Addresses to Great People^ by Hood and Reynolds, but published without their names, appeared in the spring of 1825. The Odes were fifteen in number, of which Hood wrote eight, and these by far the more remarkable. The little volume attracted immediate attention, and a second edition followed in a few weeks. I have else- where told how it fell into the hands of Coleridge, then living under Mr. GiUman's roof at Highgate, but his letter to Charles Lamb, attributing to him the authorship, must be quoted once more — "My dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under you, or und cum you. I Imow none of your frequent visitors capacious and assimilative enough of your converse, to have reproduced you so honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his lock-up house. Gillman to whom I read the spirited Parody on the Introduction to Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknovm, and to Mrs. Fry — he speaks doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. . . . " Thursday night, ten o^ clock, — No ! Charles, it is you 1 I have read them over again, and I understand why you have anon^d the book. The puns are nine in ten good — many excellent — the Newgatory, transcendent — then, moreover and besides, (to speak with becoming modesty), excepting my own self who is there but you who could write the musical lines and stanzas that are intermixed ? " And Lamb writes back on the 2nd of July from Colebrooke Row, Islington, to disclaim Coleridge's com- pliment — " The Odes are four-fifths done by Hood — a silentish young man you met at Islington one day, an invalid. The rest are Reynolds's, whose sister Hood has lately married. I have not had a broken finger in them. Hood will be gratified as much as I am by your mistake." And Lamb adds, at the conclusion of his letter, " Hood has just come in: his sick eyes sparkled with health when he read your approbation." i / XXX MEMOIR One must be allowed to differ from Coleridge, even though it be in a matter of critical insight, and pronounce that he " nodded " for once in so confidently attributing these effusions to Lamb, whose style (save in the love of punning) they in no respect recall. And even the puns are of a sort which is peculiar to Hood. Coleridge, how- ever, assuredly cites one of the most astonishing, when he refers to Hood's criticism on the methods of Mrs. Fry, the admirable Prison philanthropist, for setting up her school in prison instead of outside it, seeing that prevention is surely better than cure : — I like your carriage, and your silken grey, Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching ; But I don't like your Newgatory teaching. Again, the quotations prefixed as appropriate to the several Odes are no less " transcendent " for their invention and wit. That to Mr. Graham, the aeronaut, for example, is introduced as follows : — Up with me ! up with me into the sky. Wordsworth, — on a Lark / And the Address to the "Steam -Washing Company," which had then lately incurred much odium by intruding upon the province of the private laundress, is prefaced with a quotation from the Merry Wives of Windsor: — For shame — let the linen alone ! " Sermons in Stones," as a motto for the " Ode to Mrs. Fry in Newgate," is no less happy; and indeed the publication of this little book first made it evident that " verbal wit " (as commonly so called) was not necessarily the last resource of the would-be " funny man," but in the hands of a poet and humorist was capable of quite unforeseen uses and developments. That the imagination of the poet could not altogether escape interference from that of the wit had already made itself apparent in Hood's serious verse. It is noticeable in "Lycus the Centaur," and in the "Two Peacocks of Bedfont," where the writer, having I MEMOIR XXXI to describe the downcast looks of the humbled penitent asi it were feasting upon the grass, could not resist adding! "like him of Babylon," — which is witty, but strikes a\ false note. But on other occasions, as in the " Ode to Melancholy " and " The Song of the Shirt," Hood dis- covered how to make even the play upon words the minister of a reaUy poignant pathos. Shortly after their marriage in 1825, Hood and his wife went to live in Robert Street, Adelphi, and here for the next two years Hood applied himself diligently to cultivating every side of his genius. He lost no time in following up the success of the Odes and Addresses by another humorous work, this time entirely from his own hand, the Whims and Oddities^ in Prose and Verse, issued by the publishing house of one Lupton Relfe, in Cornhill, in 1826. In this volume Hood appeared for the first time as an illustrator of his own work, in humorous designs, etched by himself. He allowed in his Preface that he exhibited this new faculty with some diflSdence. "It will be seen," he wrote, "from the illustrations of the present work, that the inventor is no artist — in fact, he was never * meant to draw,' any more than the tape- tied curtains mentioned by Mr. Pope." And in another touching paragraph of the same Preface he clearly showed that he was still working against the grain, and was still yearning to exercise his far higher gifts. "At a future time, the Press may be troubled with some things of a more serious tone and purpose — which the author has resolved upon publishing, in despite of the advice of certain critical friends. His forte, they are pleased to say, is decidedly humorous ; but a gentle- man cannot always be breathing his comic vein." And, indeed, the volume of Wkinis and Oddities, though ostensibly in this same vein, gave new evidence of capacity for better things. One poem it contained, " The Last Man," suggested doubtless by a combined recollection of CampbelFs poem with the same title, and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, shows much of the same XXXU MEMOIR tragic intensity, blended with its grim humour, that belongs to " Eugene Aram " and the serious porijions of " Miss Kilmansegg." Meantime, the London Magazine being now closed to him. Hood found a home for his fugitive verse in a new direction. In the year 1823 a German art -publisher and bookseller of the name of Ackermann, established in London, produced the first number of an illustrated Annual, based upon a plan long followed in Germany, called the Forget-me-Not^ which was destined to have many imitators and successors. The first number, very German in its contents, combined with its literary contributions such statistics as we now look for in Whitaker's Almanack or the Statesman's Tear-Booh These were, however, quietly dropped in succeeding issues; and the Annual remained a home for miscellaneous prose and verse of that class which we now know as Album Literature. It soon called into the field a dozen imitators, in the Friendship's Offerings^ the Literary Souvenirs, the Amulets, and the Keepsakes, in which, among much mediocre and ephemeral stuff, was occasionally embalmed a stray lyric of Coleridge, or Lamb, or Blanco White. Hood made his first appearance in the Forget-me-Not of 1826 with a grace- ful poem, " The Water-Lady," suggested by a water-colour drawing of Severn's, given by Keats to Jane Reynolds. In Friendship's Offering for the same year he published his " Autumn," the lines beginning — The autumn is old, The sere leaves are flying, and by far the most original lyric he had yet written, the verses — I remember, I remember The house where I was born. In the year 1826 Hood's lyric vein was flowing at its purest and sweetest, and in the various Annuals for 1827 appeared the ballad, " It was not in the Winter " ; the verses, ** Time, Hope, and Memory " ; the poem called "Flowers," ''1 will not have the Mad Clytie"; the ballad, MEMOIR xxxill " She's up and gone, the Graceless Girl " ; and the charm- ing verses, " Ruth," which adorned the Forget-me-Not of this year. Hood was, in fact, preparing for the experiment which he had foreshadowed in his Preface to Whims and Oddities, In this year 1827 he gave to the world his first and last volume of serious verse, and appealed under his own name to the suflfrages of English lovers of poetry. It was entitled The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, Hero and Leander, Lycus the Centaur, and other Poems, and was announced as "By Thomas Hood, author of Whims and Oddities, etc. etc." The volume, produced with every advantage as to paper and print by the house of Longmans, proved an absolute failure as regarded any appreciation by the general reader. It is probable that had the volume appeared anonymously, it might have fared better. In any case it was a distinct mistake to remind the reader of Whims and Oddities and similar jeux desprit, on the very title-page. Hood was already widely known as a wit and humorist ; and experience has often proved that when a man possesses distinct endow- ments of very different intellectual and artistic value, the reputation for the less important gift will eclipse that of the higher and greater. The poets of that time had no doubt as to Hood's true place among them from the first. The public remained untouched ; the volume fell all but dead from the Press, and Hood's son and daughter tell us that their father bought up as many of the " remainder " copies as he was able, to save them from the Butter-shop. The volume included two new poems of considerable length, the former of which, " The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," was dedicated in terms of unmistakable affection to Charles Lamb. " An intimacy and dearness," Hood writes, " worthy of a much earlier date than our acquaint- ance can refer to, direct me at once to your name : and with this acknowledgement of your ever kind feeling towards me, I desire to record a respect and admiration XXXIV MEMOIR for you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had not tliese better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the same selection by your intense yet critical relish for the works of our great dramatist, and for that favourite play in particular which has furnished the subject of my verses." The other poem, "Hero and Leander," in the six-line stanza of Shakspearc's " Venus and Adonis," was prefaced by a sonnet to S. T. Coleridge in grateful recollection of Coleridge's praise of "the musical lines and stanzas," interspersed with the more humorous passages of the Odes and Addresses. The remainder of the volume was in the main a reprint of poems from the London Magazine and the Annuals, with one notable exception, the "Ode to Melancholy," which does not seem to have appeared before. The subject of this poem, like that of many others in the volume, was probably suggested by an Ode of Keats on the same theme. Indeed, the fascination that Hood found in Keats extended even to the subjects of his verse. Keats has an Ode, as well as a Hymn, to Apollo, and Hood follows suit with a " Hymn to the Sun." Keats writes his superb Ode "To Autumn," and Hood has no less than three on the same theme, as well as his lines, "The Departure of Summer," written in much the same key. But the most significant contrast presented by the two poets is to be found in their respective treatment of the topic of melancholy. With Keats — in this poem all but at his very finest — the votary of melancholy is warned against seeking his goddess in her conventional symbols — wolf's-bane or nightshade, or the berries of the yew. Rather, says the poet, is she to be found in things of loveliness and perfectest delight : — She jlwells with Beauty — Beauty that nwx&X. die : And Joy whose hand i» ever at hiH lips Bidding adieu ; and acliing Pleasure nigh, Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips : MEMOIR XXXV Aye, in the very temple of Delight, Veiled Melancholy has her sonran shrine. The truth and beauty of this are incomparable, and Hood had doubtless felt them. Indeed, he repeats the same truth in his Ode, yet with a difference. He cannot rival the magic of Keats's numbers, but he imports into his treatment of the theme a new beauty, because a new accent — the accent of the unattainable and the un-^ certain issues of life and death. The Pagan treatment has given place to something spiritual : — clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, And do not take my tears amiss ; For tears must flow to wash away A thought that shows so stem as this : Forgive, if somewhile I forget, In woe to come, the present bliss. As frighted Proserpine let fall Her flowers at the sight of Dis, Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss. TThe sunniest things throw sternest shade, " I^And there is ev'n a happiness-- (^That makes the heart afraid ! But it is in the concluding stanza that a note appears, as it were of an Augustine or a Pascal, lifting the whole into a key altogether remote from that of Keats, and still more from the pessimistic humour of the Byronic school. And here, too, appears for the first time that daring use of an actual play upon words, making wit the handmaid, and not the enemy, of the keenest pathos, in which Hood stands alone : — All things are touch'd with Melancholy, Bom of the secret soul's mistrust. To feel her fair ethereal wings Weigh'd down with vile degraded dust ; Even the bright extremes of joy Bring on conclusions of disgust, Like the sweet blossoms of the May, Whose fragrance ends in must.. O give her, then, her tribute just, Her sighs and tears, and musings holy ! c XXXVl MEMOIR Tliere is no music in the life niat 8o mds with idiot laugliter solely ; There's i.ot a string attuned to nlirth, But has its chord in Melancholy. The poem marks a stage in Hood's literary history. Melancholy had indeed early " marked him for her own." He had watched father, mother, sister and brother pass one by one away, and his own health was already such as to make a broken and suffering life all but inevitable. He had discovered that with the deepest vein in his own rich nature the public, for the moment at least, showed no sympathy. His reputation as a wit was established, and it Wiis as a wit that the world of readers was determined to accept him. He had worked very hard during the two years succeeding his marriage. A second series of Whims and Oddities appeared in 1827, containing "Tim Turpin" and "The Volunteer" and other specimens of his amazing invention and fertility in punning; and at the close of the same year he broke entirely ifresh ground in some Prose Tales, mostly of a sombre complexion, cleverly imitating the manner of the Oriental Story -Teller, called National Tales. Hood had changed his publisher more than once already, and his new venture appeared from the shop of William Harrison Ainsworth, then lately established as publisher in Old Bond Street. The stories are not without ingenuity, and are skilfully written ; but a public that would not look at Hood's serious verse was still less likely to wel- come such a new experiment as this. The Preface shows that the author was not without misgivings as to this result, and the latter portion is, in fact, a personal applica- tion of the moral set forth in the Ode just quoted. It is a pathetic apology for following the bent of his own nature, and delaying, if it might Ixi, for a little while longer, the devotion to faculties that only awaken laughter. This api)eal for recognition of his serious side is surely as toucliing as anything that Hood has left us : " I make therefore no excuses for this production, since MEMOIR XXXVU it is a venture at my own peril. The serious character of the generality of the stories is a deviation from my former attempts, and I have received advice enough on that account to make me present them with some mis- giving. But because I have jested elsewhere, it does not follow that I am incompetent for gravity, of which any owl is capable, or proof against melancholy, which besets even the ass. Those who can be touched by neither of these moods rank lower indeed than both of these creatures. It is from none of the player's ambition, which has led the buffoon by a rash step into the tragic buskin, that I assume the sadder humour, but because I know from certain passages that such affections are not foreign to my nature. During my short lifetime I have often been as *sad as night,' and not like the young gentlemen of France, merely from wantonness. It is the contrast of such leaden and golden fits that lends a double relish to our days. A life of mere laughter is like music without its bass; or a picture (conceive it) of vague, unmitigated light; whereas the occasional melancholy, like these grand rich glooms of old Rembrandt, produces an incomparable effect, and a very grateful relief" Serious verse and serious prose alike failed to please ; and the courageous humorist set himself, with cheerfulness undiminished and temper unsoured by disappointment, to cultivate his more acceptable talent. For the next fifteen years, with a few notable exceptions such as Eugene Aram " and the more thoughtful stanzas of iss Kilmansegg," Hood wrote no poetry save birth- day verses and sonnets to his wife and children. It was not until he was within the deepening shadows of the end that his true instinct of compassion once more found vent in the strains of "The Song of the Shirt" and "The! Bridge of Sighs." The Whirligig of Time has brought about its revenges, and it is by such as these that Hood lives and will live in the heart of his countrymen. (( XXXVlll MEMOIR IV (1827—1835) At their lodgings in Robert Street, Adelphi, was bom to the Hoods in 1828 their first child, a daughter, who survived her birth only a few hours. " In looking over some old papers," wrote Hood's second daughter, when compiling her father's life thirty years later, " I found a few tiny curls of golden hair, as soft as the finest silk, wrapped in a yellow and time-worn paper inscribed in my father's handwriting : — Little eyes that scarce did see, Little lips that never smiled ; Alas ! my little dear dead child, Death is thy father, and not me, — I but embraced thee, soon as he ! " Charles Lamb wrote and sent to the sorrowing parents his beautiful lines, in happiest imitation of the later Elizabethans, "On an Infant dying as soon as bom," beginning : — 1 saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. The lines were printed in the following year in The Gem^ an Annual edited that year by Hood; in which alao appeared his own fine poem, "The Dream of Eugene Aram." Hood was also able to publish some verses by Sir Walter Scott and Hartley Coleridge, besides a pre- tended prose contribution by Lamb, entitled " The Widow," written to accompany an illustration. Lamb having failed to fulfil a promise to contribute, the copy was provided by Hood, with the concurrence of his brother humorist. About the same time Hood asso- ciated himself with the new journal, the AthencBum^ which, having been started by James Silk £uckingbam in 1828, and having more than once changed hands, MEMOIR XXXIX had become the joint property of the printer and a group of men of letters, including John Hamilton Beynolds and Hood. The first Charles Wentworth Dilke became editor and co-proprietor in 1830, and within a few months resolved on the bold step of reducing the price of the journal from a shilling to fourpence. The other proprietors, distrusting the policy of such a change, parted with their interest in the journal, and Dilke and his printer remained sole proprietors. The reduction of price, combined with the ability and judgment of Dilke, soon brought about a large increase of circulation, and the ultimate success of the Athenceum as the leading literary journal was established. Hood continued to write for it both in verse and prose for the remainder of his life, and was throughout warmly supported by Dilke, who became his most intimate personal friend and chief correspondent. In 1829 Hood and his wife removed to Rose Cottage, Winchmore Hill, near Enfield, and about ten miles from London. It was then quite in the country, and even at this day the cottage, with its pretty garden, is delight- fully rural. Here Hood's second daughter, Frances, was born in 1830 ; and here, at Christmas time in the same year, was issued the first volume of the famous Comic Annual, destined for some dozen years to form Hood's chief occupation and means of livelihood. His past association with Forget-me-Nots, Souvenirs, and the like seems to have suggested to him to originate a humorous variety of the same type, with contributions, literary and pictorial, from various hands — the larger part, however, to be his own. He informed his readers in some pre- fatory words that the materials he had been collecting for a third series of Whims and Oddities had been thrown into the present volume, and that each future number of the Annual would "in the same way be associated with the whims and oddities of other authors." This plan, however, was soon abandoned. Hood's own versatility of talent proving more attractive than any xl MEMOIR material of the same kind lie could obtain from other hands. The first of the series was dedicated to Hood's friend, Sir Francis Freeling, the Secretary of the Post Office, whose labours in that department had been of signal service to the country. Hood addresses him as "The great Patron of Letters, Foreign, General, and Two- penny, whose increasing efibrts to forward the spread of intelligence as a corresponding member of all societies (and no man fills his post better) have singly, doubly, and trebly endeared him to every class." The bulk of the little volume published by Tilt of Fleet Street is from Hood's own pen, with a few contributions from his brother-in-law, Reynolds, writing under his old London Magazine nom de guerre of Edward Herbert; some verses by a Miss Isabel Hill and a few others ; while George Cruikshank and a Miss "A. K." supplied half a dozen etchings. The appearance of this first issue of the Comic Annual^ presenting Hood, though not for the first time, as a punster of quite unprecedented invention, suggests the natural question why this " verbal wit," these plays upon words, place him in a quite different category from the ordinary punster of society. And the difference would seem to be this, that. Hood being a poet and humorist, imagination and humour enter into this verbal wit at its best, and impart to it a quality which makes " punning " an inadequate definition. The ordinary familiar pun — as I have said elsewhere in dealing with Hood's comio verse — when purely mechanical, depending (that is) merely upon verbal coincidence, is so easy and so un- illuminating as quickly to lose all stimulating effect, and I to bring on (to use a phrase of Hood's) " conclusions of ■ disgust." In the hands of the vulgar punster the pun ; itself is everything — itself constitutes the wit. There is / nothing underlying it or reaching beyond it. In the I hands of a Hood the pun is a vehicle or instrument, the I use of which takes its charm from the heart and fancy of I MEMOIR xli him who wields it. The pun is the mere nucleus, around which gathers a halo of humorous fancy. Hood was, in short, much greater than a punster, because he came to the task from a higher ground. Moreover, the predomin- ance of the pun in his humorous verse tends to close our eyes to the wide range of his invention in subjects to which he applies it. This first Comic Annual contains a variety of verse which all readers of Hood will remember. It has the parody on John Hamilton Reynolds's once popular drawing-room ditty : — Go, where the water glideth gently ever. Hood addresses a young lady on the eve of her departure for India, where the marriage market is less overstocked than at home, and proceeds : — Go, where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, Consign'd for wedlock to Calcutta's quay — Where woman goes for mart, the same as i^ango?, And think of me ! The simile is so natural and so obvious — it has so little the appearance of being led up to — that when the so- called pun first flashes upon us it fairly takes our breath away. Then there is the sad story of the mysterious fate of Mrs. Bond's ducklings, which regularly disappear from the surface within a few days of their hatching : — Like those that copy gems, I'm thinking, They all were given to die sinking. Until at last the secret comes to light when, the pond in a hot summer having dried up, certain well-fed eels turn out to have been the offenders : — The sight at once explained the case, Making the Damo look rather silly — The tenants of that Edy Place Had found the way to Pick a dilly. Here, too, we have the disappointed angler who, dis- covering by sad experience that there is not a " one-pound xlii MEMOIR prize " to be got in his " fresh-water lottery," can only oome to the unwelcome conclusion that so "Ashless a stream " must be " like St. Mary's, ottery." Coleridge had called one of Hood's puns "transcendent," and there are hundreds more to which the same epithet may be applied. No doubt there are many more that are far- fetched and not humorous, for Hood, as must never be forgotten in estimating his genius, had to write in illness and suffering, against the grain, for sheer bread. But the instinct of detecting verbal analogies was always strong in him, even when he had put off the harness of literary toil He punned because he could not help it. When expecting the birth of his first child he writes to Dilke that he is " every day a step farther to becoming a parent." When introduced to the late Mr. Tegg, the publisher, he observed, "Yours is a very remarkable name, Mr. Tegg ; I see that you take an egg after your T'^ It is the drollery of these puns, rather than their ingenuity, that gives them their peculiar flavour. There is one legend in verse, however, the longest in the volume, which, although profuse in this same verbal wit, deserves special notice as showing how Hood could never divest himself, even when writing burlesque, of the instincts of the poet. The poem, of some thirty stanzas, is entitled "A Storm at Hastings, and the Little Unknown." The locality was one with which Hood was specially familiar. Sea air, with bathing and boating, always brought him new strength after his frequent attacks of illness, and Hastings was his chief resort A delightful letter of Charles Lamb's will be remembered, in which he writes to call his friend's attention to the points of interest in the place, and especially the little " Loretto " church at Hollington. Hood had obviously been himself an eye-witness of the terrible storm which he depicts. He had also probably been amused by the good luck of some Cockney sportsman who won more than his share of tea-caddies and pincushions at the local lotteries and the roulette tables of the bazaars, with which watering- MEMOIR xliii places then abounded. Out of this combination of incidents he seems to have evolved this legend of Diahleriey in which a mysterious stranger of dwarfish stature, — ^who had made a compact, h la Faust^ with the fiend, acquiring thereby this uncanny run of luck, — was ultimately checkmated by his enemy, who took mean advantage of this sea-storm to work his revenge. The imhappy victim meets his death by drowning : — — on a sea excursion The juggling Demon, in his usual vein, Seized the last cast— and nicked him in the Tnain — which last phrase, for the benefit of those to whom the technicalities of Hazard are unfamiliar, may be roughly explained as " got the advantage in the last throw of the dice." Now, it is hardly i^nfair to Hood to suggest that the capabilities of this last-named phrase first suggested the legend ; but the opportunities of the situation thus decided upon at once called into play power of a quite higher sort. The puns throughout are indeed abundant and excellent, but the real effectiveness of the whole lies in its imagination and its quite singular picturesqueness and forca The description of the storm is clearly, as I have said, that of an eye-witness; and when for the moment Hood forgets to be witty, he gives us so exquisite a stanza as the following : — And so the tempest scowled away, — and soon Timidly shining thro* its skirts of jet, We saw the rim of the pacific moon. Like a bright fish entangled in a net, Flashing its silver sides ; how sweet a boon Seemed her sweet light, as though it would beget With that fair smile a calm upon the seas. Peace in the sky, and coolness in the breeze. It is to be noticed throughout the poem, as on other like occasions when Hood intermingles wit with a serious \ or melodramatic interest, that the purely imaginative \ portions are never degraded by the admixture. The stanza here employed is that of Don Juan, and the xliv MEMOIR storm may have been in part suggested by its famous predecessor in the second canto of Byron's masterpiece ; but Hood, though he loves the device of a humorous ending to a serious stanza, never appeals to a noble emotion in his readers for the express purpose of turning / it to scorn as soon as awakened. In truth, Hood was by nature absolutely free from the spirit of the mocker. His nature was essentially religious, although the bigots of his day early recognised in him an enemy to be reckoned with. A notable instance of this blending of the imagination of the wit with that of the poet, and of the power of wit to intensify a situation of the purest pathos, is afforded by some verses of Hood's that appeared, only to disappear, in a short-lived publication of the following year. In 1831 a new magazine was adventured by Edward Moxon, who had lately started as publisher through the generous assistance of Samuel Rogers. The Englishman^ Magazine^ as it was entitled, edited by Moxon himself, appeared in April of this year, but obtained so little support that it was discontinued in the following October. This torso of a magazine, now exceedingly rare, is noticeable for having published several papers by Charles Lamb and a review by Arthur Hallani of Tennyson's first volume of poems (1830). But it also contained two poems by Hood, one of which has become justly famous, the beautiful stanzas entitled " The Death-Bed " : — We watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. So silently we seemed to speak, So slowly moved about. As we had lent her half our powers To eke her living out. Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied. We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died. MEMOIR xlv For when the mom came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed — she had Another mom than ours. At what date these verses were written remains uncertain. Hood's son and daughter were under the impression that they were prompted by the death of a sister of Hood's, who did not long survive the death of her mother in 1821. This, however, affords no clue to the date of composition, and Hood's children assigned them conjecturally to the year 1824. The fact that they had appeared in print in 1831 seems to have escaped observation altogether (so little attention had Moxon's periodical attracted); and the first edition of Hood's serious poems after his death in 1845 included the verses among others as then printed for the first time. The other poem of Hood's in the Magazine, called " Anticipation," (a variation of his old customary theme of the melancholy lying at the root of all human joys), has hitherto escaped notice altogether, and is included in the present edition for the first time. About this year Hood became personally known to the sixth Duke of Devonshire, apparently through a presentation copy of the Comic Annual for 1830; and the acquaintance was further strengthened by Hood's felicitous compliance with the Duke's request that Hood would furnish him with a set of fancy book titles for a library door at Chatsworth. The second Annual, for 1831, was dedicated to the Duke, who proved then and afterwards one of Hood's most staunch and generous friends. The Comic Annvxil had already become a success, first and second series passing into second editions, and further proving their popularity by calling into existence a crop of imitators. Hood playfully remonstrates with these in the preface to the volume of 1831. The New Comic was indeed, as Hood pointed out, a very untradesmanlike "conveyance," and an ''nncandid candidate" for public favour; while the xlvi MEMOIR Comic Offering (he said) was a very confession of inferiority, inasmuch as it only "offered" to be comic. The imitators do not seem to have long kept the field ; and Mr. Tilt continued to publish Hood's Annual imtil the year 1834, after which it passed into the hands of another firm. In 1832 the Hoods migrated from Wiuchmore Hill to Lake House, Wanstead, which was their home for the next three years. The change of residence did not prove a great success. The house, as its name implied, was built upon an island in one of the many artificial pieces of water in the park attached to the magnificent mansion of the Tylneys. The mansion, erected by Sir Richard Child, afterwards Earl of Tylney, in 1715, had been finally dismantled and pulled down, owing to the reckless extra- vagance of its latest proprietor, in 1822. Lake House had been an outlying banqueting-hall, used for fetes and such entertainments ; and being in its internal arrange- ments very little suited for a dwelling-house, was prob- ably let, after its original occupation was gone, at an insignificant rent. But water was about it everywhere, not favourable to Hood's rheumatic ailments ; and visits to the sea for recovery's sake became more and more necessary. While at Wanstead Hood wrote his single three-volumed novel, Tylney Hall ; borrowing the title from the noble family who had first inhabited Wanstead House, and using the picturesque and romantic scenery of Epping Forest as the background of his story. The serious interest is melodramatic, relieved by a comic under-plot, dealing with the ever- popular topic of a Londoner's adventures and mistakes when first set down amid rural surroundings. The types of character are in the main conventional, drawn rather from Hood's omni- vorous novel-reading than from any fresh observation of life. Tylney Hall is, in fact, a Minerva Press novel, elevated throughout by the charm of the poet and humorist. Much of the book had been task- work to him. He had little faith in his competence to write sentimental MEMOIR xlvii fiction. "Raby and Grace are failures," he wrote to his Mend Dilke, referring to the story. " I can't write love scenes : as a fellow said at my piece at the Surrey, * I oan act the part, but I forget the words ! ' " And then, too, the dominant habit of punning could not be restrained, and appears in season and out of season. The baronet of the story receives an important letter, handed to him in the hunting-field; and we are told, " the baronet broke the cover — the fox at that moment doing the same thing." And yet, underlying all con- ventionalism and surface drollery there is felt the inde- feasible charm of Hood's own true temperament — his sense of the lacrymae rerum^ and his tenderness and reverence for all things human. And the result is to place the story in a category quite removed from the drawing-room romance of the period just preceding the appearance of Dickens and Thackeray. And that sii^gular sense of fcUefulness which, as we have seen, ever haunted Hood's path, and even dictated the subjects of his most humorous drawings, appears here in the one really impressive character of the story — the tragic and almost painful figure of the poor post-boy, "Unlucky Joe," whose life is crushed at every turn by disaster or untoward chanca Tylney Hall was published at the close of the year 1834. Meantime, the Comic Annual had appeared more or less regularly, according as Hood's always uncertain health permitted. His rivals and imitators seem most ungenerously to have traded upon the know- ledge of this uncertainty, and to have insinuated to their own public that it would sooner or later bring Hood's Annual to an end. In the 'Preface to the volume for 1833 Hood enters his protest, with as much good- hmnour as wit, against these veiled attacks, especially from a Miss Louisa Sheridan, who edited the Comic Offering, " For the fourth time," Hood writes, " I come forth with my volume, which, thanks to mild critical weather, has now stood through three winters, and may xlviii MEMOIR therefore lay claim, by Mr. Loudoun's permission, to the designation of a * Hardy Annual.' Those only who have been pressed to death by a newspaper, and made to walk through a Valley of the Shadow of Death, haunted by printers' devils, can estimate the ghostlike pleasure I I'eel in thus appearing again in sheets. Owing to an obscure sentence in the Comic Offering^ partaking rather of Burke than Sheridan, my literary if not bodily de- parture was prematurely announced in the Herald, the Atlas, and the Metropolitan: — * Thrice the Banshee cried.' But I liave no inclination to be passively tied neck and heels, and thrown into the Lake of Darkness, like the ganger at the command of the rantipole wife of Rob Roy. I have seen but thirty-five summers, and with regard to my constitution am strictly a Conservative. As Words- worth says of a little child, I feel my life in every limb ; and indeed I know on high authority that I am as nearly related to the * Undying One ' as Miss Sheridan herself. That lady must therefore be content to *live and let live ' a little longer ; and if other parties have wilfully persisted in throwing the pall over me, they will find by this volume that they have neither gained their end, nor mine." But notwithstanding the cheerful tone of this, as of all Hood's public utterances, and the fact that as yet his humorous vein of invention showed no signs of failure, clouds were gathering about his path. Debts were accumulating, and apparently from no direct fault of Hood or his wife. There is no evidence that they were at this or any time thoughtless or extravagant; but attacks of illness were frequent, and ill -health cost money, if only because it brought with it the necessity for frequent absences from home. In January 1835 their only son was bom, and a long and dangerous illness of Mrs. Hood was the sequel. She was tended with loving devotion by her husband; but differences and MEMOIR xlix complications arose between Hood and his wife's family ; and the combination of these anxieties with a growing difficulty as to the means of bare subsistence seems for a while to have brought Hood almost to the verge of distraction. An unpublished letter of excessive length, written during this crisis to his friend Dilke, lies before me, almost too piteous in the anguish of mind it reveals even for quotation. The one gleam of comfort aflfbrded was that the good Dr. Elliot of Stratford — thenceforth Hood's most loyal physician and counsellor for the rest of his life — ^had spoken hopeful words as to his wife's recovery. " The light of my hearth is not extinguished," Hood writes, " and I delight in the fresh blaze up of the old fuel of love. ... It will gratify you both to know that Jane mentioned you both repeatedly, in her delirium even, for the heart looks after the head in its wanderings, like a mother after a stray child." At the end of 1834, Hood's daughter informs us, her father, "in common with many others," suffered Iieavy loss through the failure of a firm. What firm this was does not appear, or the nature of Hood's transactions with it. It was certainly on this occasion not due to his publisher, though all through his career Hood seems to have suffered from business entanglements connected with his books. Hood, it would appear, was advised by many to become bankrupt; but he chose to face the future without that protection, and to seek by hard work and economy to wipe out his obligations. With this view, after parting with all his personal effects for the" benefit of his creditors, he resolved to live abroad for a few years. In March 1835, leaving his wife on the fair path of recovery, Hood left England for Rotterdam on his way to seek some cheap and pleasant refuge for his family on the Rhine. He was so unfortunate as to make this voyage in the first week of March, when a memorable storm arose, placing the steam -vessel, the Lord Melville^ for some hours in grave danger of ship- wreck, and exposing Hood to suffering and exhaustion 1 MEMOIR from the eflfects of which his children believed that he never recovered. " I had a dreadful passage to Rotter- dam," he wrote to his wife from Coblenz; "Wednesday- night was an awful storm, and Thursday morning was worse. I was sea-sick and frightened at sea for the first time ; so you will suppose it was no trifle : in fact it was unusually severe. I went up at midnight and found four men at the helm, hint enough for me, so I went down again ; and in the morning a terrific sea tore the whole four from the helm, threw the captain as far as the funnel (twenty paces) and the three men after him. Had it not come direct aft it would have swept them into the sea — boat, skylights, and everything, in short — and have left us a complete wreck. Eleven others mis- carried that same night near at hand, so you may thank the cherub I told you of; but such a storm has seldom been known." Hood remained only a day and night in Rotterdam ; but this was his first sight of a foreign town, and in spite of sea-storm and pecuniary anxiety, it brought back his old happy and hopeful mood. The impressions made are preserved for us in the cheerful lines he sent home at once to his wife, to be printed in the A tkenceum of a few days later : — Before me lie dark waters In broad canals and deep, Whereon the silver moonbeams Sleep, restless in their sleep ; A sort of vulgar Venice Reminds me where I am ; Yes, yes, you are in England, And I'm at Rotterdam. And so on, with skilful manipulations of the final recurring rhyme, until it reaches the passionate greeting at the close — (Hood's letters to his wife, whether in prose or verse, were always those of a lover) : — Then here it goes, a bumper — The toast it shall be mine. MEMOIR li In Schiedam, or in »herry, Tokay, or hock of Rhine ; It well deserves the brightest, Where sunbeam ever swam — "The girl I love in England" I drink at Rotterdam ! V (1835-1840) Hood finally chose lodgings for his family in the Castor Hof at Coblenz, where Mrs. Hood and the children joined him at the end of March. Coblenz, sixty years since, was a charming retreat. As yet only the picturesque bridge of boats spanned the Rhine between the city and the noble fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. Railways were not, and the nymph of the Lorelei had not yet been driven from her romantic heights by the tunnelling of the rock below. The beauty of the Rhine and Moselle scenery might have proved a real stimulus to Hood's poetic fancy, but he allowed it to find vent only in two or three short lyrics, afterwards included in his Up the Rhine, Many clever descriptive letters from Mrs. Hood to her friends the Dilkes, printed in the memoir by the son and daughter, give a pleasant picture of their surroundings, and of the domestic troubles arising from ignorance of the language and the impositions of their tradesmen — all of which they bore with characteristic cheerfolness. Then, too, the Rhine was becoming a fiEiyourite route for English tourists, and they were in the way of seeing from time to time English friends, such as the Dilkes and the Elliots. An accidental acquaintance with a Prussian officer. Lieutenant von Franck, ripened into a very close intimacy, founded on many common tastes both in literature and in sport, notably in that of angling, and proved a great gain both to Hood and the d Hi MEMOIE whole household. Hood's health indeed did not improve. Attacks of haemorrhage from the lungs seem to have become more frequent ; and the German doctors, rightly or wrongly, treated them by frequent bleeding from his arm. He was well enough, however, to enjoy a pleasant excursion as far as Berlin, touching many other interest- ing cities and towns en route, by travelling as his friend Franck's companion with the regiment — ^but he paid the penalty by a rather worse than usual lung attack on his return. The frequent letters he wrote during this trip to his wife — his "dearest and best" — show how his heart, untravelled, turned ever to her and to his children. Meantime, he worked with unflagging energy at the one important literary production of each year — the Comic Annual — in which everything was now from his own hand, prose and verse as well as the humorous woodcuts. He wrote also occasional reviews and verses for the Athenceum, with which journal his friend Dilke allowed him to keep in constant touch. And all the while he was collecting material for the volume which was later to embody his German experiences, his Up the Rhine. Hood's original intention had been to remain abroad only two years, and to return to England in 1837, for he felt his expatriation keenly. But his financial diflficulties failed to allow of this; and when 1837 arrived. Hood found himself unable to return to LoDdon; and at the same time found the distance of Coblenz from England an increasing difficulty, owing to the expense and delays in the despatch and receipt of "copy" and wood-blocks for the Comic Annuals and other literary work. Under these circumstances he resolved to remove for a while nearer England, to some seaside place in Belgium. " My present idea," he writes to his friend Franck in April 1837, "is per Cologne and Aix to Ostend or Antwerp, when I shall be able to get over to England in a few hours at any time, if necessary; and should I get strength to travel, I can see something of Belgium and France. I rather incline MEMOIR liii to Ostend on account of the sea air, which always does me great good." And on the 28th of June, we find him writing to his friend Mr. Wright, the engraver, who managed the business part of the Comic Annuals in London, that the family had just reached Ostend, and were quartered in the Rue Longue. They had travelled by steamer to Cologne, and then taken coach to Libge, where they were entertained by a friend, M. Nagelmacher, at his country seat. Thence they journeyed by Brussels to Ghent, and finally through Bruges to Ostend. Here the Hoods remained three years, diversified by occasional brief visits to England. The change of residence was to prove in the end very disastrous to Hood's health. " My father's constitution," his daughter tells us, " was as unfitted for the miasmatic swamps and mists of Ostend as for the alternate extremes of heat and cold at Coblenz" ; and it unfortunately proved that damp, and malaria, and bad water, as well as an unhealthy house, were in the end to reduce Hood to a condition from which ultimate recovery was impossible. But for the moment the breezes of " ocean, his old love," revived him ; and one of the first fruits of this stimulus of scene and air was a poem which appeared in the AtJienceum of 12th August, the famous " Ode to Rae Wilson." The gentleman thus addressed was a Scotsman, a native of Paisley, who had been bred to the law ; but having been left a large fortune by an uncle, had abandoned that profession and devoted his life to foreign travel, the results of which he gave to the world in successive volumes of very slight value of any sort, and of the feeblest literary quality. Mr. Wilson's religion was of the narrowest puritanical type ; and the main object of his travel was to glorify Protestant England at the expense of the benighted Eomanist or Mahommedan. Each of his books contained, besides its main subject, light and airy digressions upon the cuzTent literature of the day, criticised always from the same exclusive standpoint, and unmitigated by even a liv MEMOIR grain of humour. Hood had been for some years a chief object of Jiis virulent contempt — partly because his satire had never spared the bigots of the day, and partly, no doubt, because he was a writer in the Athenceum, a journal which had uniformly rated Mr. Wilson's produc- tions at their true value. In one pleasing passage, indeed, Mr. Wilson had indicated Hood, with delicate allusion to his Christian name, as that journal's " favourite Tom-fool." In 1835 Wilson had published his Records of a Route through France and Italy, vdth Sketches of Catholicism, and in the course of this single volume had attacked Hood no less than three times. Hood had on several occasions expressed his opinion in verse on Sir Andrew Agnew and his " Lord's Day Observance Bill " ; and in discussing the " absence of the Christian Sabbath " in Paris, Kae Wilson refers in a note to Hood, who, it appears, in pleading for the right of the poor man not to be debarred on Sunday from pleasures which were freely open to and enjoyed by the rich, had written the line : — After creation should come re-creation. " I wonder," adds Mr. Kae Wilson, " what Johnson would have said of the man who could utter, not only so despicable, but so truly infamous a pun as that." Later in the volume Rae Wilson goes out of his way to refer to " such laboured burlesques of character and manners as * Tylney Hall,' things about as respectable in literature as mountebanks and merry-andrews are in society " ; and finally describes Hood as " gratuitously and ambitiously irreverent." It cannot of course be gainsaid that Hood had shown scant respect for a school of religionists, very prominent in his day, with whom he had been brought in painful contact among members of his own family. He had hit hard, and could not well expect to be let alone in return. It is clear that his trenchant and not always discriminating satire had raised* up many enemies, and that '^infidel" was one of the commonest of epithets MEMOIR Iv launched against him. Now Hood was no infidel, but a man of really religious nature — humble, patient, and afifectionate — who revolted against that vulgar Pharisaism which was the chief type of religion that met his view. It is impossible to read his own more thoughtful verse without discovering that religious trust, as well as tboughtfulness, was growing in him to the latest day of his life. He could well have afforded to leave his enemy alone; but perhaps the personality of Mr. Wilson appealed to him also irresistibly as a humorist. And now in 1837 this writer had appeared with two fresh volumes, NoUb Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home, in which not only was Hood again held up to execration, but a more exalted victim appeared in the person of Sir Walter Scott. Years were certainly not bringing Mr. Wilson the philo- sophic mind, or chastening his literary style; and the following remarks on a classical passage in Marmion may serve finally to show the quality of the man : — " Even Sir Walter Scott himself says — Love rules tlie court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above. For love is Heaven, and Heaven is love ! And this, it must be confessed, is very neatly and anti- thetically expressed ; that it is particularly moral, sensible, or decent, is more than can be affirmed. On the contrary, it is just the sort of flippant stuff that would do for a Yauxhall song. It exhibits such a glorious confusion of ideas that I suspect the poet must have been rather bozzy at the time he penned it, else hardly would it have been possible for him to jumble the chaste amours of the camp with the spiritual raptures of the saints," — with much more elegant sarcasm of the same sort. Hood is again attacked for his "horribly indecent allusions to Holy Writ " — the allusion chosen on this occasion to illustrate the charge being a description of a certain sow, from whose jaw protruded a sprout of cabbage, as the dove so staunch For peace supports an olive branch. Ivi MEMOIR Mr. Wilson's new work was reviewed in the Athenceum, in the first week in August, with more than usujJ severity ; and an intimation was added that an Ode to Mr. Wilson would appear in the following week. The ode is among the best known of Hood's produc- tions ; and every one will remember with what mingled good sense and good wit he justifies himself in a prefatory letter to the Editor of the Athenceuin : " In some cases the dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit; but the same bird is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and as such has figured, time out of mind, in allegorical pictures. . . . But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their intolerance; and the spirit is certainly strong enough in Mr. W.'s works, to set up a creature as sacred, in sheer opposition to the Mussul- man, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It would only be going the whole sow." The ode in general is too familiar to bear quotation, but one beautiful passage, reflecting a recent experience of travel by one who looked on nature with other eyes than those of Mr. Rae Wilson, acquires new interest when read in this connection : — Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss, One bright and balmy morning, as I went From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, If hard by the wayside I found a cross That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot — While nature of herself, as if to trace The emblem's use, had trailed around its base The blue significant Forget-me-not ? Methought the claims of Charity to urge More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope, The pious choice had pitched upon the verge Of a delicious slope. Giving the eye much variegated scope ; — " Look round," it whisper'd, " on that prospect rare, Tliese vales so verdant, and those hills so blue : Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh and fair. But " (how the simple legend pierced me through !) " ' PRIEZ POUR LES MALHEUREUX.' " MEMOIR Ivii Ab a whole, the " Ode to Kae Wilson " may not be one of Hood's happiest productions, but no other single poem of his contains more notable passages, serious and htimorouB, that have long passed into household words. The wit is here and there up to Hood's highest level. Rae Wilson having abundantly proved that his chief solace in travel was the chance of pouring contempt upon the superstitions of Bomanism, Hood compares him to a " skittish Scottish bull " pursuing " an old woman in a scarlet cloak." Then, too, there is the felicitous Who would rush at a benighted man, And give him two black eyes for being blind ? and the incomparable But you have been to Palestine — alas ! Some minds improve by travel, others rather Besemble copper wire, or brass, Which gets the narrower by going farther ! The ode has attained a celebrity rather independent of its literary merits ; and many may be heard to quote it gleefully as if it actually spoke the last word on the issues between Hood and the representative religious teachers of his day. Hood had not, it must be admitted, had much experience of the nobler side of that evangelical faith which was still in his day the dominant form of religious earnestness. He had come in contact, both at home and in society, with a decadent species of it which appeals directly to the satirist. And he shared the mistake, conmion with the humorist, of confounding the narrowest and most bigoted section of the party with the party as a whole. Such characters as Bums's "Holy Willie," or the pious Banker with the oily smile in Tennyson's " Sea Dreams,'* naturally excited his indigna- tion and disgust. But Hood's contempt for the religious world of his day must always be accepted with some careful limitations. In the spring of 1838 Hood was busy with a reissue of bis old " Comic Annuals," in monthly parts, under the Iviii MEMOIR title of Hood's Own. To these he contributed a con- siderable amount of new matter, the most important being the " Literary Reminiscences " already referred to. The July number contained a portrait of Hood, which the artist, J. F. Lewis, made a special voyage to Ostend to paint. It is reproduced in the present edition, and, on the authority of Hood's children, was an excellent likeness. In the meantime. Hood was continuously at work upon the new Comic Annuals, which duly appeared in 1838 and 1839. But this double labour of Uood's Oivn and the Annuals was telling upon his gradually failing health. The disease from which he suffered made steady progress. Ostend, otherwise fairly liked by him as a residence, proved absolutely unfavourable to his maladies. Fever and haemorrhage were continually confining him to bed, and causing interruptions to his work. His letters to his friends, and his prefaces to the Annuals, abound in references to these ever -recurring difficulties of his task. To one friend he writes that the doctors have discovered that his heart is "hung too low.'' "Never mind," adds the cheerful invalid, "you shall always find it in the right place ! " He still found time, however, to gratify wife and child with an occasional sonnet or other verse, to testify his never-failing affection. It was in September 1839 that he wrote the birthday verses to his little daughter, with the touching stanza — So may'st thou live, dear ! many years, In all the bliss that life endears, Not without smiles, nor yet from tears Too strictly kept : When first thy infant littleness I fohled in my fond caress, Tlic greatest proof of hajipiness Was this — I wept. In December 1839, he wrote the Preface to his Up the Rhine, on which he had been for long engaged, and tlie volume appeared before Christmas. / MEMOIR lix Its success was immediate; and his children tell us that its first edition of 1500 copies was exhausted in the first fortnight. The book, written in the form of letters from an English family travelling on the Bhine, is admittedly based upon the corresponding adventures of the family in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker. John Gkdt, in his Ayrshire Legatees^ had already availed him- self of the same model, but with qualifications for prose fiction and character - drawing far superior to Hood's. In attempting fiction, Hood was in truth using his left hand. His types of character, at least in middle- class life, are for the most part conventional, and fail to convince. The servant Martha Penny, who corre- sponds to Smollett's Winifred Jenkins, is the only diverting character in the book; and even there the amuse- ment is chiefly due to the puns and other verbal humour incident to the well-worn resource of eccentric spelling. The new work, however, was received with general welcome, and must have brought some one a handsome profit (it was published, I think, at half a guinea), but there was nothing in store for poor Hood but dis- appointment. His publishers of many years, A. H. Baily and Co., of Cornhill, failed to satisfy the author, and legal proceedings against the firm became necessary in the months that followed. The result during the early part of 1840 was that Hood was again in dire straits for money; while his declining health made it more and more uncertain as to his powers of earning in the future. During one of his short visits to England in April of this year, where he was as usual the guest of his faithful friend, Charles Wentworth Dilke, he writes to his wife at Ostend : "I find my position a very cruel one — after all my struggles, to be, as I am, almost moneyless, and with a very dim prospect of getting any, but by the sheer exercise of my pen. What IB to be done in the meantime is a question I ask myself without any answer but — Bruges Jail ! At the very moment of being free of Baily, am I tied else- Ix MEMOIR where, hand and foot, and by sheer necessity ready to surrender myself that slave, a bookseller's hack ! " This visit to London had apparently been arranged at the suggestion of Dr. Elliot of Stratford, who was alarmed by the medical reports of Hood's condition, and to whose house Hood repaired after this first week with the Dilkes. While there he was attacked with so severe a return of blood-spitting as further to alarm Dr. Elliot, who allowed Mrs. Hood to be summoned from Ostend. A letter from Mrs. Hood in the following August explains to their old friend Lieutenant Franck, how this latest illness of her husband's had made it absolutely necessary that they should leave Ostend, and settle once more in England. "At a few hours' notice, leaving the dear children in care of our friend here, I set off to London in the middle of May. Our friends the Elliots welcomed me most kindly, and I found that Hood had been so care- fully and tenderly nursed by them, that my coming would add but little to his comforts. . . . Dr. Elliot gave his opinion that Hood could never be so well as in England, so we made up our minds to come and reside here again ; but having much to arrange, we could not return for the children till about a month ago ; which you, who know us, will suppose we gladly did, having been longer absent from them than we had been ever before." Hood obtained the necessary supplies for the expense of leaving Ostend, and bringing his family to England, by parting with the one copyright he held — that of Tylney Hall — to Mr. Bentley of New Burlington Street. Mrs. Hood, in the letter just cited, writes from Camber- well where they had taken up their abode ; and is able to add the gratifying intelligence that her husband was under an engagement with Mr. Colburn to write articles for the New Monthly Magazine, with the right re- served of separate publication hereafter. With the double prospect of regular employment and of more favourable conditions of health and comfort, Fortune seemed at last to be smiling on Thomas Hood. MEMOIR Ixi VI (1840—1845) On arriving in London the Hoods established them- selves in lodgings at Camberwell — at No. 7 Union Row, in the High Street — not far from the Green. They were probably attracted to this neighbourhood by the circum- stance that Dr. Robert Elliot, brother of their old friend at Stratford, was in practice as a physician hard by. For the second time Hood was fortunate in his medical attendant ; and Robert Elliot, like his brother, remained for the rest of Hood's life his devoted counsellor and friend. Under his care, and the more favourable con- ditions of climate and food. Hood's health for the time surprisingly improved, and he was able to devote himself in good heart to his work for Mr. Colbum on the New Monthly Magazine. In its pages, during 1840 and 1841, appeared, under the inappropriate heading of "Rhymes for the Times," the wonderful "History of Miss Kilmansegg," besides the " Tale of a Trumpet " and other less important pieces in verse and prose. Mean- time, the lawsuit with his former publisher, Mr. Baily, was running its weary course, and no profits seem to have reached the author from the sale of Up the Rhine. In the winter of 1840-41 Hood's health was again failing ; but in February he reports himself to Dr. Elliot of Stratford as better, and as having just " killed Miss Eilmansegg instead of her killing him / " He also has to report that the Royal Literary Fund had, un- solicited, voted him a grant of £50, and that he had declined it "for many and weU- weighed reasons." The letter to the Secretary of the Fund in which Hood declined its bounty is given in full in the Memoir of Hood's friend, 0. W. Dilke, prefixed to the " Papers of a Critic." " My position at present," Hood writes, " is an easy one compared with that of some eight months ago, Ixii MEMOIR when out of heart, helpless, spiritless, sleepless, childless. I have now a home in my own country, and my little ones sit at my hearth. I smile sometimes, and even laugh. For the same benign Providence that gifted me with the power of amusing others has not denied me the ability of entertaining myself. . . . My embarrass- ment and bad health are of such standing that I am become as it were seasoned. For the last six years I have been engaged in the same struggle without sinking, receiving, or requiring any pecuniary assistance whatever. My pen and pencil procured not only enough for my own wants, but to form a surplus besides — a sort of literary fund of my own, which at this moment is * doing good by stealth ' to a person, not exactly of learning or genius, but whom, according to the example of your excellent societv, I will forbear to name." At the time this assistance was declined, there can be no doubt that Hood was very poor. Among other ways of adding to his scanty resources he was writing occasional reviews of books in the Athenoeum. In 1840 it fell to his lot to review the first volume of Master Humphrey' s Clocks comprising the earlier chapters of the " Old Curi- osity Shop." Some years afterwards, when writing the Preface to the first cheap edition of his story (in 1848), Dickens touchingly refers to this Review : — " I have a mournful pride in one recollection associated with * little Nell.' While she was yet upon her wanderings, not then concluded, there appeared in a literary journal an essay of which she was the principal theme, so earnestly, so eloquently, and tenderly appreciative of her, and of all her shadowy kith and kin, that it would have Ixicn insensibility in me, if I could have read it without an unusual glow of pleasure and encouragement. Long afterwards, and when I had come to know him well, and to see him, stout of heart, going slowly down into his grave, I knew the writer of that essay to be Thomas Hood." It seems to have been not long after the appear- ance of this Review that Dickens and Hood became MEMOIR Ixiii personally intimate. In a letter of Hood's, in April 1841, he tells his friend Franck that he and " Boz " are already " very good friends " ; and thereafter the names of Dickens and his family occur frequently in the Memoir by Hood's son and daughter, as among those who greatly cheered his declining years. In August 1841 Theodore Hook died. He had been Editor of the New Monthly^ and Mr. Colburn at once offered the vacant post to Hood. Hook had received a salary of JB300 a year, and Hood stipulated for the same. It was the one piece of good fortune — the first and only opportunity of a settled income — he was ever to enjoy, and great was the happiness in his home. Mrs. Hood at once wrote the good news to their friends at Stratford : — " Mr. Colbum's Mr. Shoberl has been here to offer Hood the editorship of the New Monthly, There's good news ! I have scarcely wits to write to you ; but you, our kind- est and best friends in adversity, must be the first to rejoice with us at better prospects. . . . We have had some anxiety whether Mr. Colburn, with the disadvan- tages of Hood's having been of late unable to do anything for the Magazine, would consider him competent. I have thought of it night and day, and truly thankful am I to €k)d for the blessing." And, two days later, she adds, "The prospect of a certainty makes me feel * passing rich.' Poverty has come so very near of late, that> in the words of Moore's song, * Hope grew sick as the witch drew nigh.' " Hood, too, writes in the same strain of happiness, and better days seemed in store for them all. Anxiety being now relieved, Hood's health and spirits as usual improved. At the end of 1841 the family removed to furnished rooms in Elm Tree Eoad, St. John's Wood. In the meantime the Comic Annual y which had been suspended for two years, was resuscitated through the publishing house of Mr. Colburn, the con- tents being chiefly reprints from Hood's contributions to the Magazine. " Miss Kilmansegg " reappeared, with illustrations by John Leech, then just rising into fame Ixiv MEMOIR through his drawings in Punch. The " Friend in Need," and the " Tale of a Trumpet," with a few comic cuts and some unimportant prose sketches, completed the volume, which had reached a second edition by February 1842, and still farther contributed to raise Hood's hopes for the future. This year was indeed to prove almost the happiest and most prosperous of Hood's life. His pecuniary circumstances had improved — though his law- suit with Baily still dragged its slow length along — and his position as editor of a leading magazine introduced him to new and congenial literary society. The summer of this year was fine and warm, and Hood was able to pay frequent visits in the country with his little son ; and, after his long exile, to enjoy with new zest, what he had always dearly loved, the rural scenery of his native land. In the autumn he even managed a trip to Scot- land, visiting his old haunts in Dundee, and afterwards seeing Edinburgh, where he met with a general welcome, making many new friends — Dickens having given him an introduction to Jeffrey, whom he visited at Craigcrook. He returned to London refreshed, and in apparently im- proved health ; but new troubles awaited him, and thenceforth life was never free from labour and anxiety until the end. Differences were arising between him and Colbum. Who was to blame, if either, we cannot tell. It may well have been that Hood, with little business faculty generally, had no j)articular capacity for that of editing. In any case, the relations between them ended (not amicably), and Hood projected a magazine of his own, to begin with the New Year. But before the old year closed Hood was to attain at one bound a reputation at once higher and wider than he had yet won. In the Christmas Number of Punrh for 1843 appeared — with a whole page to itself, and enclosed within a head and side border of grotesque figures, as befitted a Christmas number — the famous " Song of the Shirt." The subject of underpaid needlewomen had recently been brought prominently before public attcn- MEMOIR Ixv tion by an incident in the Police Courts duly recorded in the Times of 26th October. A poor widow, with two infant children, was charged with having pawned certain articles of clothing belonging to her employer, a Jewish slop-seller in the Minories. She was paid to make men's trousers at the rate of sevenpence each. Her employer's foreman, who attended at the Police Court, took very lofty ground, and asserted that if the woman worked steadily she could make a very good living; and, on being pressed by the magistrate as to what he meant by the phrase, explained that she could earn seven shillings a week. A somewhat similar case, that immediately succeeded this at the same court, still further emphasised the dire necessities of the unhappy workwomen. A poor sempstress was charged with the same offence of pawning ; and it was proved in evidence that the employer put shirts out to be made at three halfpence each * but that in this particular case a "middle-woman," who took the contract, further reduced the wage to a penny-farthing. The Times of the following day had an eloquent and indignant leader on the subject, and for a while at least much public sympathy was aroused. Hood had been an occasional contributor to Punch both in verse and prose since that periodical had passed into the hands of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans ; but it was almost by accident that the "Song of the Shirt" made its first appearance there. The author only sent it to Punch after it had been rejected in other quarters. In enclosing the poem to Mark Lemon, Hood expressed his doubt whether it was quite suitable, adding that it had been refused by three papers, and that he was " sick of the sight of it." And indeed when Mark Lemon laid the verses before the staff of Punch at the weekly dinner, the majority were adverse to its publication, on the ground of its inappropriateness to a comic periodical ! The editor's wiser judgment, however, prevailed, and the poem appeared in the Christmas number. Its success was immediate and decisive. It was quoted by all the Ixvi MEMOIR papers, headed by the Times. The authorship was the subject of much wild guessing, though Dickens, among others, at once attributed it to its right source. The verses were translated into French and German; and were parodied times without number. "But," adds Hood's daughter, " what delighted, and yet touched my father most deeply, was that the poor creatures, to whose sorrows and sufferings he had given such eloquent voice, seemed to adopt its words as their own, by singing them about the streets to a rude air of their own adaptation." Time has confirmed the verdict then passed. In its kind the poem is a masterpiece ; in the first place, because of its profound sympathy, which is beyond suspicion. There were a hundred minor poets in Hood's day who could have written creditable and pathetic verses on the same subject; but not one, it may be safely said, who could have produced the effect achieved by Hood. It may perhaps even be said that no one could have so moved others who had not himself trodden the kindred path of poverty, and of anxiety for those he loved. And in the next place, the verses display that blending of pathos and wit in which Hood had then, as now, no rival. There is hardly a stanza which, if analysed, will not be found to take its point from an antithesis or play upon words that is purely witty. Indeed, the most poignantly pathetic stanza of the whole finds its climax in a pun, and the pun is most assuredly justified by its success : — Work — work — work, In the dull December light, And work — work — work. When the weather ia warm and bright — While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs And twit me with the spring. And this pity — ever-deepening pity for the sufierings of his kind — was to prove the chief motive force of Hood's worthiest work for the remaining few months of his MEMOIR Ixvii life ; although, in touching contrast with his own worthier aspirations, he felt constrained to announce his forth- coming venture, under the title of ffoocPs Magazine^ and Comic Miscellany. His public expected him first and foremost to be comic; and he saw no course except to comply. The prospectus was issued at the close of the year 1843, with a preliminary list of names of the probable contributors. They comprised the usual magazine writers of the day, such as Mrs. S. C. Hall, William and Mary Howitt, Mrs. Norton, Barry Cornwall, with two or three of greater note, including Dickens and Robert Browning. The opening address by Hood was ablaze with puns, of greater or less brilliancy ; and con- cluded by commending the Magazine ''to those en- lightened judges, the Reviewers — and to that impartial jury — too vast to pack in any case — the British Public." Struggling against the steady progress of an incurable malady, — organic disease of the heart, — attended by many complications. Hood worked his hardest to make his opening number a success. He provided from his own hand ten or twelve of the articles (including Reviews), in verse and prose, amounting to about half the entire number. Of these by far the most remarkable was the poem of the " Haunted House," written to accompany a steel engraving from an oil painting by Thomas Creswick. That the picture preceded the poem and suggested it, there can be no doubt whatever; for Hood was in no circumstances to commission such a work from an artist of Creswick's already high distinction. In the poem Hood has followed the leading of the artist in many details; but under his hand the theme developed and became an absolutely independent creation. The poem and its illustration at once made their mark, and the first number of the Magazine was received with general favour. But, as usual, difiiculties and anxieties attended the production even from the outset. Remembering his old troubles with publishers, Hood had rashly resolved to dispense with them altogether ; and the Magazine was e Ixviii MEMOIR issued from an office of its own in the Adelphi, until afterwards transferred to a medical bookseller in the Strand. Then, too, the supposed "capitalist" with whom Hood had associated himself turned out to be a man of straw; and from the first Hood found himself crippled for want of capital to continue the publication. The printer was changed more than once; and Hood's continual attacks of illness made it more and more difficult to bring out each successive number at the proper date. In the number for February appeared the pathetic " Lady's Dream," with an illustration by the author — the reverse of felicitous — representing a "Modern Belinda," with allegorical surroundings of winged skeletons. The number for April contained the " Workhouse Clock," and that for May the " Bridge of Sighs." Meantime Charles Dickens had come to his friend's assistance with a pleasant satire upon the rage for the dwarf, Tom Thumb, who was this year attracting more than his share of favour in the very highest circles. Monckton Milnes and Robert Browning were also sending poems ; and the delightful eccentricity of the latter's " Garden Fancies " must have been very perplexing to the sober Magazine Public of 1844. Hood's own contributions of any mark were to become fewer and fewer ; and, with the exception of the "Lay of the Labourer" in November 1844, he was to produce no more serious verse. At this juncture, HckkI was practically a dying man ; and no cause could have been more worthy of his latest thoughts than this of the young labourer, Gifford White, who had been indicted at the Huntingdon Assizes for sending threatening letters to the farmers of his parish. He had written, in the name of his fellow-labourers, asking for employment, and only threatening rick-burning and other terrors in the event of not getting it. The young man, little more than a boy of eighteen, was found guilty and sentenced to transportation for life. Hood's poem was written as a plea for pardon, or at least for a mitigation of the MEMOIR Ixix sentence. Hood's health was now so gravely impaired, that but for the devotion of his friends, and notably of Mr. F. O. Ward, who constituted himself an unpaid sub- editor, and practically managed the whole business, the publication must have been abandoned. In the June number of the Magazine the public were informed, in an editorial note, of the true state of the case. "A severe attack of the disorder to which he has long been subject — haemorrhage from the lungs occasioned by enlargement of the heart (itself brought on by the wearing excitement of ceaseless and excessive literary toil) — has in the course of a few weeks reduced Mr. Hood to a state of such extreme debility and exhaustion that during several days fears were entertained for his life." The announcement went on to say that on the evening of 23rd June he had tried " sitting up in bed, to invent and sketch a few comic designs — but even this effort exceeded his strength, and was followed by the wandering delirium of utter nervous exhaustion." Soon after Christmas, 1843, Hood had made his last change of residence to a house in Finchley New Koad — (between the Eyre Arms and Marlborough Road), — to which he gave the name of Devonshire Lodge, after his early and ever- generous friend, the Duke. Hood had apparently taken this step in the full hope and belief that his new venture, the Magazine, was to bring him more prosperous days. But only disappointment and anxiety followed; and under their depressing effects as the new year wore on, it became evident that his working days were numbered. As early as July 1844, there is evidence that his friends were approaching the Prime Minister of the day. Sir Robert Peel, with a view to obtaining for Hood a grant from the civil list. A few months later an intimation was conveyed to him that these efforts had been successful; and he was desired, "as his own life was so precarious," to name a female relative on whom a pension might be conferred. Hood accordingly named his wife. The correspondence between Ixx MEMOIR the Prime Minister and Hood, so honourable to both sides, is given in fuU in the memou: by Hood's daughter. The official notice of a pension to Mrs. Hood of a hundred a year, " to take efiFect from June last," was received by Hood in November 1844. When Christmas came, Hood had taken to his bed, from which, save for a few hours at a time, he was never to rise. He continued to work at his unfinished story, "Our Family," for the Magazine, propped up in bed ; and was able under these sad conditions of pain and weakness to write the playful account of his sitting for his bust, in the previous summer, to the sculptor Mr. Edward Davis. An engraving of this bust was given in a subsequent number of the Magazine, and served as a frontispiece for many years to the serious poems, collected after Hood's death. In the February number appeared two stanzas, the last effort of the poet, and a worthy confession of that brave and hopeful creed which had enabled him never to faint in the hard struggle, or lose the cheerful faith " that all which we behold is full of blessings." Farewell, Life ! My senses swim, And the world is growing dim ; Thronging shadows cloud the light* Like the advent of the night, — Colder, colder, colder, still. Upward steals a vapour chill, — Strong the earthy odour grows — • I smell the Mould above the Rose ! Welcome Life ! the Spirit strives ! Strength returns, and hope revives ; Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn Fly like shadows at the mom, — O'er the earth there comes a bloom — Sunny light for sullen gloom, Warm perfume for vapours cold — I smell the Rose above the Mould ! The Magazine for March warned the subscribers of the increasing illness of their editor; and the number for April announced, without any reserve, his approaching MEMOIR Ixxi death. The remai^;iing few weeks were weeks of leave- taking, and happily of abundant sympathy and help from friends and neighbours. Hood's faithfid and attached friend, F. 0. Ward, who had for some months past practically edited the Magazine, wrote to Mr. S. C. Hall an account of one of his last visits to the sick-room : — " He saw the on-coming of death with great cheerful- ness, though without anything approaching to levity ; and last night when his friends, Harvey and another, came, he bade them come up, had wine brought, and made us all drink a glass with him, ' that he might know us for friends, and not undertakers ! ' He conversed for about an hour in his old playful way, with now and then a word or two of deep and tender feeling. When I left he bade me good-bye and kissed me, shedding tears, and saying that perhaps we should never meet again." On the first of May it became evident to himself and those who watched by him that the end was near. What remains may best be told in his daughter's words. " On the Thursday evening, 1st May, he seemed worse ; and knowing himself to be dying, he called us round him — my mother, my little brother, just ten years old, and myself. He gave us his last blessing, tenderly and fondly ; and then quietly clasping my mother's hand, he said : * Eemember, Jane, I forgive all, — all, as I hope to be forgiven.' He lay for some time calmly and peace- fully, but breathing slowly and with difficulty. My mother, bending over him, heard him say faintly : * O Lord, say. Arise, take up thy cross, and follow Me.' His last words were * Dying ! dying ! ' as if glad to realise the rest implied in them. He then sank into what seemed a deep slumber. This torpor lasted all Friday ; and on Saturday at noon he breathed his last, without a struggle or a sigh." A few days later. Hood was laid to rest in Kensal Green Cemetery ; where, nine years afterwards, was erected, by public subscription, the monument, consisting of a bronze replica of the bust, with two remarkable bas-reliefs, by Ixxii MEMom the sculptor Mr. Matthew Noble, jepresenting scenes from the " Bridge of Sighs " and the " Dream of Eugene Aram." Mrs. Hood, worn out by long and devoted attendance on her husband, survived him only eighteen months. The pension was subsequently revived by Lord John Russell in favour of the two children. As a personality, Hood is not familiar to us as are many of his literary contemporaries. His chronic ill- health unfitted him for society, in which indeed his chronic poverty would have precluded him from taking much part. He was silent in company, seldom opening his mouth in general society save to deliver a jest. " I quite remember his pale face," writes Thackeray, in a well-known Roundabout Paper, "He was then thin and deaf and very silent. He scarcely opened his lips during dinner, and he made one pun." Sir James Linton remembers visiting Hood at his chambers in the Adelphi, "when I went to fetch his drawings for his Comic Annual — queer pen-and-ink drawings to be cut in fac- simHe, some by myself. I recaU him only as a spare man, of fair stature, grave but not ungenial." "In person," writes Mr. S. C. Hall, "Hood was of middle height, slender and sickly-looking, of sallow complexion and plain features, and very rarely so excited as to give indication of either the pathos or humour that must ever have been working in his soul. His was indeed a countenance rather of melancholy than of mirth ; there was something calm, even to solemnity, in the upper portion of the face, seldom relieved, in society, by the eloquent play of the mouth, or the sparkle of an observant eye. In conversation he was by no means brilliant." Hood's Letters, as given us in the Memorials, will never take a place in literature with those of Cowper, Lamb, or Edward Fitzgerald. They have little charm of style, or range of intellectual topic. They are mainly domestic, written to, or else concerning, the wife and children he loved so tenderly. Others again are merely facetious, studded with puns, and reflecting chiefly the writer's high animal MEMOIR Ixxiii spirits. But they exhibit amply and beyond possibility of question the depth of his household affections, and what Thackeray has truly called his "most pure, modest, and honourable life." Weaknesses he must have had, like other men; but his son and daughter piously and naturally keep them in the background. In managing his worldly fortunes he may have been im- provident and unbusinesslike; and he seems never to have recovered from the failure of those commercial ventures which obliged him to seek protection for some years in a foreign land. Certain allusions, not merely play&l, in his letters, point to his having been at one period over-fond of the convivial glass; but this could not have been for long ; for the early development of organic disease soon made a rigidly careful diet and domestic habits indispensable. For the rest, his industry and contentedness with his lot to the very end; the genuine piety that saved him from ever being soured by distress and disappointment ; the freedom from any and every bitterness, save against all forms of oppression of the poor and friendless — make up a story which can hardly be studied without the pity that is " akin to love." VII hood's place in literature Although Hood is one of the best known and best loved names in our Literature, it may be doubted if, either as poet or humorist, he has ever received his full due of recognition. For this there are many obvious reasons. In the first place, he wrote too much, and so diluted his reputation. From the date of his marriage, continually harassed by ill health and pecuniary anxieties, he was forced to produce literary matter in season and out of Ixxiv MEMOIR season — with the grain, and against it. He was obliged often to manufacture ** copy " sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, struggling against pain and weakness. Much of his comic verse might well be spared, and an even larger proportion of his comic prose. And by a well-known perversity incident to human judgment, the critic too often turns to the feebler productions of the writer as the gauge of his quality, and as determining his rank. Hood has suffered in his degree from this cause ; even as the reputation of a greater poet, Words- worth, has suffered, and continues to suffer, from the inferior quality of what Hood happily called his " Betty Foy-bles." Again, Hood's position in literature has been affected by the circumstance that he did two things excellently, which, in the general view, are incompatible — in which case, as I have already noticed, popular opinion generally fixes on the inferior gift as representing the writer*s real capacity. He was a "funny man," as well as a lyric poet of real quality and earnest aims ; and was so admir- able and original in the former and more abundant character, that it probably caused many to regard the serious verse as merely an ambitious bid for a reputation it was not in the writer's power to achieve. Hood, doubtless, helped to strengthen this impression by practically ceasing to produce serious poetry for some fifteen years of his short life. But that this was due, as I have already said, to the necessity of finding a ready market for his wares, is, I think, beyond a doubt. Thackeray, in his essay before referred to, assumes that Hood mistook the true bent of his genius. Writing to a friend, respecting some memoir of him which had been published, Hood had said, " You will judge how well the author knows me when he says my mind is rather serious than comic." " At the time he wrote these words," says Thackeray, "he evidently undervalued his own serious power, and thought that in punning and broad grinning lay his chief strength." But surely Hood's words here MEMOIR Ixxv are those of saddest irony. It is inconceivable that the man who wrote the poems published in the volume of 1827, and also those of the last two years of his life, when he was once more free to follow the natural bent of his genius, can have doubted that his truest, as well as his highest, faculty was that of the poet. The best puns of Hood, as has been already observed, have nothing in conmion with what I have called mechan- ical wit, but are aglow with humour and imagination. To deny these the rank of wit because the vehicle of them is a " pun," is to be the slave of a definition. A favourite method with Hood, it will be remembered, was to embody his pim in a drawing. These " picture-puns " abound in the Comic Annuals. I may cite two specimens of these. One represents an incident in a besieged town, where a live shell has fallen into a house, and is smoking away in alarming fashion in the centre of the floor. The occu- pants of the room are escaping hurriedly by door, window, and chimney ; the legend underneath being, " One black ball excludes." The other drawing referred to, also (like so many of Hood's) of a grim but never cynical humour, displays a recruiting - sergeant waving above his head the dreaded cat-o'-nine- tails. The legend beneath is the well-known toast, "The Army! and Three-times-three ! " As I have just said, to disparage the rare and original vein of fancy that prompted such things, merely because they savour of the " pun," is to run the risk of seriously limiting one's range of literary sympathy and enjoyment. Indeed, the peculiar genius of Hood may oblige us to reconsider more than one of our favourite literary canons ; and among them, the relation of wit and poetry. Hood's wit is constantly poetical, and his poetry is so frequently witty, as to make the division of his verse, for editorial purposes, into "serious" and "humorous" a matter of real difficulty. We are all agreed that wit is heightened by an element of poetic fancy. The question remains, — Is Poetry, when in intention serious — helped or Ixxvi MEMOIR hindered, strengthened or weakened, by admixture with Wit 1 The question has often been raised and discussed in connection with the euphuistic poets — "Metaphysical" or Fantastic, — of the seventeenth century, Cowley, Love- lace, Cleveland, and the rest. And the question has been so far settled that we are all agreed that the habitual use of " conceits," wherein is mere ingenuity, is fatal to any enduring pleasure. In this shape, the thing was then a fashion, and faded in due course like all fashions. The bulk of the poetry of these men is unreadable and forgotten. But yet there were true poets among them who now and again made it abundantly clear that Wit and Poetry are two sisters, who may "dwell together in one house." Cowley, who has become, through John- sou's famous memoir, the typical example of the English concettist, has proved, if only by his famous comparison of Bacon to the Lawgiver on Mount Pisgah — privileged to behold, but not to enter, the Promised Land, — that what is in essence pure wit is not distinguishable from the very highest Poetry. Richard Lovelace, whose conceits are now and again intolerable from their triviality, has left us at least one lyric where a conceit — in this instance, a paradox — is elevated into the most pathetic beauty by the loftiness of its moral truth : — I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I uot Honour more ! Herbert, Crashaw, Donne, in like manner, have their abundant and perishable affectations. Yet all of these in turn show how tnie wit may subserve the highest aims of the Poet ; and that in fact, so far from Wit and Poetry being irreconcilable, they shade and pass into one another by gradations quite imperceptible. Who shall decide, on the moment, whether Waller's couplet — The Koul's t sublime — the sublimity being killed by the wit. But a larger range of investigation would assuredly have modified his judgment. For even his own chosen examples are not all conclusive. He cites, for instance, the familiar couplet from " Lochiers Warn- ing "— 'Tis the sunset of life gives one mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadow before — and avers that this ceases to be witty, just because it is mysterious and morally striking. But it would be at least as fair to argue that the wit, such as it is, enforces and fixes in memory the mystical lesson. A finer and more accomplished critic than Sydney Smith has, how- ever, in our own day, been perplexed by this juxtaposition of wit and pathos in a favourite poem of Hood's. Mr. Francis Palgrave, in the original issue of his Golden Treasury^ was so far offended by the middle stanzas of " The Death-Bed," as to omit them bodily; and to explain in his notes that they were "ingenious," and that in- genuity and poetry were mutually destructive. As to one of these stanzas : — Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied — We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died — f l:(xyiii MEMOIR most or Hood's readers would reply that the poignancy of the pathos is heightened by the so-called " conceit " ; and that the use of it is just not " ingenious " because it is based upon absolute fidelity to nature. By a happy coincidence, in the same volume Mr. Palgrave has pre- served, without any change, a second poem of Hood's, to which the same objection might as well have been taken. In the verses beginning — I remember, I remember, The bouse where I was bom — the writer, recalling the poplar trees which surrounded his father's homestead, adds — I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky : It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy, To know I'm farther off from Heaven Than when I was a boy. This is unquestionably witty, but it is also unquestion- ably beautiful ; for in this instance, as in the former, the wit is subordinate to the deeper human interest, and is felt to be so by the reader. It is only fair to Mr. Palgrave to add, that he long ago restored the missing stanzas to the former poem, and has thus left his delightful volume without its solitary flaw. The blending of poetry and wit is therefore common to Hood with many of his predecessors ; but he was the first to make the more daring venture of employing verbal wit — the pun — in serious verse, and justifying it by its results ; and this, too, in poems where the interest is purely pathetic. In Hood's mixed poems, such as " Miss Kilmansegg," this form of wit is deliberately employed throughout; and the puns in that poem display an amazing combination of humour and fancy. They display also that quality, in which Hood's puns are unique, of falling naturally into their places, as if they had met the writer on his road, rather than been sought TO HOPE ' Oh ! take, young Seraph, take thy harp, And play to me so cheerily ; For grief is dark, and care is sharp. And life wears on so wearily. Oh ! take thy harp ! Oh I sing as thou wert wont to do. When, ^1 youth's sunny season long, I sat and listened to thy song. And yet 'twas ever, ever new. With magic in its heaven-tuned string — The future bliss thy constant theme. Oh ! then each little woe took wing Away, like phantoms of a dream ; As if each sound That fluttered round, Had floated over Lethe's stream ! By all those bright and happy hours We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs. Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show. Ere buds were come, where flowers would blow. And oft anticipate the rise Of life's warm sun that scaled the skies ; By many a story of love and glory, Aiid friendships promised oft to me ; By all the faith I lent to thee, — Oh ! take, young Seraph, take thy harp, And play to me so cheerily ; (S B TO HOPE For grief is dark, and care is sharp, And life wears on so wearily. Oh ! take thy harp ! Perchance the strings will sound less clear, That long have lain neglected by In sorrow's misty atmosphere ; It ne'er may speak as it hath spoken Such joyous notes so brisk and high ; But are its golden chords all broken ? Are there not some, though weak and low, To play a lullaby to woe 1 But thou canst sing of love no more, For Oelia show'd that dream was vain ; And many a fancied bliss is o'er, That comes not e'en in dreams again. Alas ! alas ! How pleasures pass. And leave thee now no subject, save The peace and bliss beyond the grave ! Then be thy flight among the skies : Take, then, oh ! take the skylark's wing. And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing On skylark's wing ! Another life-spring there adorns Another youth — without the dread Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns Is here for manhood's aching head. Oh ! there are realms of welcome day, A world where tears are wiped away ! Then be thy flight among the skies : Take, then, oh ! take the skylark's wing. And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing On skylark's wing ! THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER THE DEPAKTUEE OF SUMMER Summer is gone on swallows' wings, And Earth has buried all her flowers : No more the lark, — the linnet — sings. But Silence sits in faded bowers. There is a shadow on the plain Of Winter ere he comes again, — There is in woods a solemn sound Of hollow warnings whispered round, As Echo in her deep recess For once had tum'd a prophetess. Shuddering Autumn stops to list. And breathes his fear in sudden sighs. With clouded face, and hazel eyes That quench themselves, and hide in mist. Yes, Summer's gone like pageant bright ; Its glorious days of golden light Are gone — ^the mimic suns that quiver. Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river. Gone the sweetly-scented breeze That spoke in music to the trees ; Gone — ^for damp and chilly breath, As if fresh blown o'er marble seas. Or newly from the lungs of Death. Gone its virgin roses' blushes. Warm as when Aurora rushes Freshly from the God's embrace, With all her shame upon her face. Old Time hath laid them in the mould ; Sure he is blind as well as old, Whose hand relentless never spares Young cheeks so beauty-bright as theirs ! Gk)ne are the flame-eyed lovers now Prom where so blushing-blest they tarried THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER Under the hawthorn's blossom-bough, Gone ; for Day and Night are married. All the light of love is fled : — Alas ! that negro breasts should hide The lips that were so rosy red, At morning and at even-tide ! Delightful Summer ! then adieu Till thou shalt visit us anew : But who without regretful sigli Can say, adieu, and see thee fly ? Not he that e'er hath felt thy powV, His joy expanding like a flow'r. That Cometh after rain and snow, Looks up at heaven, and learns to glow : Not he that fled from Babel-strife To the green sabbath-land of life, To dodge dull Care 'mid cluster'd trees, And cool his forehead in the breeze, — Whose spirit, weary-worn perchance. Shook from its wings a weight of grief. And perch'd upon an aspen leaf. For every breath to make it dance. Farewell ! — on wings of sombre stain, That blacken in the last blue skies. Thou fly'st ; but thou wilt come again On the gay wings of butterflies. Spring at thy approach will sprout Her new Corinthian beauties out. Leaf-woven homes, where twitter-words Will grow to Eongs, and eggs to birds ; Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers, And April smiles to sunny hours, Bright days shall be, and gentle nights Full of soft breath and echo-lights. As if the god of sun-time kept His eyes half-open while he slept. THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER Eoses shall be where roses were, Not shadows, but reality ; As if they never perish'd there, But slept in immortality : Nature shall thrill with new delight, And Time's relumined river run Warm as young blood, and dazzling bright. As if its source were in the sun ! But say, hath Winter then no charms 1 Is there no joy, no gladness warms His aged heart ? no happy wiles To cheat the hoary one to smiles 1 Onward he comes — the cruel North Pours his furious whirlwind forth Before him — and we breathe the breath Of famish'd bears that howl to death. Onward he comes from rocks that blanch O'er solid streams that never flow : His tears all ice, his locks all snow, Just crept from some huge avalanche — A thing half-breathing and half-warm. As if one spark began to glow Within some statue's marble form. Or pilgrim stiffen'd in the storm. Oh ! will not Mirth's light arrows fail To pierce that frozen coat of mail 1 Oh ! will not joy but strive in vain To light up those glazed eyes again 1 No ! take him in, and blaze the oak, And pour the wine, and warm the ale ; His sides shall shake to many a joke. His tongue shall thaw in many a tale. His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay, And even his palsy charm'd away. What heeds he then the boisterous shout Of angry winds that scold without, THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER Like shrewish wives at tavern door 1 What heeds he then the wild uproar Of billows bursting on the shore 1 In dashing waves, in howling breeze, There is a music that can charm him ; When safe, and sheltered, and at ease, He hears the storm that cannot harm him. m But hark ! those shouts ! that sudden din Of little hearts that laugh within. Oh ! take him where the yoimgsters play, And he will grow as young as they ! They come ! they come ! each blue-eyed Sport, The Twelfth-Night King and all his court — 'Tis Mirth fresh crowned with misletoe ! Music with her merry fiddles, Joy " on light fantastic toe," Wit with all his jests and riddles, Singing and dancing as they go. And Love, young Love, among the rest, A welcome — nor unbidden guest. But still for Summer dost thou grieve ? Then read our Poets — they shall weave A garden of green fancies still. Where thy wish may rove at will. They have kept for after-treats The essences of summer sweets, And echoes of its songs that wind In endless music through the mind : They have stamp'd in visible traces The " thoughts that breathe," in words that shine- The flights of soul in sunny places — To greet and comi)any with thine. These shall wing thee on to flow'i The past or future, that shall seem All the brighter in thy dream For blowing in such desert hours. THE SEA OF DEATH The summer never shines so bright As thought-of in a winter's night ; And the sweetest loveliest rose Is in the bud before it blows ; The dear one of the lover's heart Is painted to his longing eyes, In charms she ne'er can realise — But when she turns again to part. Dream thou then, and bind thy brow With wreath of fancy roses now. And drink of Summer in the cup Where the Muse hath mix'd it up ; The " dance, and song, and sun-burnt mirth," With the warm nectar of the earth ; Drink I 'twill glow in every vein. And thou shalt dream the winter through : Then waken to the sun again. And find thy Summer Vision true ! THE SEA OF DEATH A FRAGMENT Methought I saw Life swiftly treading over endless space ; And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace. The ocean-past, which, with increasing wave, SwalloVd her steps like a pursuing grave. Sad were my thoughts that anchor'd silently On the dead waters of tliat passionless sea, Unstirr'd by any touch of living breath : Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings On crowded carcases — sad passive things 8 THE SEA OF DEATH That wore the thin grey surface, like a veil Over the cahnuess of their features pale. And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep Like water-liles on that motionless deep, How beautiful ! with bright unmffled hair On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse ! And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips. Meekly apart, as if the soul intense Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : And so they lay in loveliness, and kept The birth-night of their peace, that Life e'en wept With very envy of their happy fronts ; For there were neighbour brows scarr'd by the brunts Of strife and sorrowing — where Care had set His crooked autograph, and marr'd the jet Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn. And lips that curl'd in bitterness and scorn — Wretched, — as they had breathed of this world's pain, And so bequeathed it to the world again, Through the beholder's heart in heavy sighs. So lay they garmented in torpid light. Under the pall of a transparent night. Like solemn apparitions luU'd sublime To everlasting rest, — and with them Time Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face Of a dark dial in a sunless place. TO AN ABSENTEE TO AN ABSENTEE O'eb Lill, and dale, and distant sea, Through all the miles that stretch between, My thought must fly to rest on thee, And would, though worlds should intervene. Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks The farther we are forced apart. Affection's firm elastic links But bind the closer round the heart. For now we sever each from each, I learn what I have lost in thee ; Alas, that nothing else could teach How great indeed my love should be ! Farewell ! I did not know thy worth ; But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized : So angels walk'd imknown on earth, But when they flew were recognised ! 10 LYCUS THE CENTAUR LYCUS THE CENTAUR FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS THE ARGUMENT Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse ; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur. Who hath ever been lured and boimd by a spell To wander, fore-doomed, in that circle of hell Where Witchery works with her will like a god. Works more than the wonders of time at a nod, — At a word, — at a touch, — at a flash of the eye, But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie, Things bom of a wish — to endure for a thought. Or last for long ages — to vanish to nought, Or put on new semblance ? Jove, I had given The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven. And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether They kept the world*s birthday and brightened together ! For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, The face I might dote on, should live out the lease Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease : And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream To another— each horrid, — and drank of the stream Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quafifd Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught, — Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup. LYOUS THE CENTAUR 11 And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear ; For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk ; But by daylight my fingers were crimsoned with gore. And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core ; And once — only once — for the love of its blush, I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright. While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight ; And oh ! such an agony thrill'd in that note. That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd ! There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee. As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree, — Oh ! for innocent death, — and to suddenly win it, I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it ; I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink, Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink ; I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height. But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight ; I ran at my fears — they were fears and no more. For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar. But moan'd — all their brutalised flesh could not smother The horrible truth, — ^we were kin to each other ! They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief. All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief : The leopard was there, — baby-mild in its feature ; And the tiger, black-barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity ; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore ; And the laughing hyena — ^but laughing no more ; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes ; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine 12 LYCUS THE CENTAUR * Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine ; And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, How thoughtful in sadness ! but this is no season To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came. That hung down their heads with a human-like shame ; The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair ; And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust. Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust ; While all groaned their groans into one at their lot, As I brought them the image of what they were not. Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking' Through vile brutal organs — low tremulous croaking ; Cries swallow'd abruptly — deep animal tones Attuned to strange passion, and fidl-utter'd groans ; All shuddering weaker, till hushed in a pause Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws ; And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o^er The tale of their woes ; but the silence told more. That writhed on their tongues ; and I knelt on the sod. And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring god. For the sad congregation of supplicants there, That upturned to his heaven bnite faces of prayer ; And I ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep, That I wept for my heart-ease, — but they could not weep. And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry, At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress, I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress, Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm. And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate ; So they passively bow'd — save the serpent, that leapt To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept LYCUS THE CENTAUR 13 In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd My lips in rash love, — then drew backward, and glistor'd Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright, Dropt down, but swift started away from my sight ! This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, Tum'd brute in my soul, though my body was not, When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places. And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet, And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet : But I fled — though they stretched out their hands, all entangled With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled, — Though they called — and perchance but to ask, had I seen Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been : But I stay'd not to hear, lest the story should hold Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told, Might translate me in flesh to a brute ; and I dreaded To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded With some pity, — and love in that pity perchance — To a thing not all lovely ; for once at a glance, Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder That flowed like a long silver rivulet under The long fenny grass, — with so lovely a breast. Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest 1 So I roam'd in that circle of horrors, and Fear Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near Cluster'd trees for their gloom — not to shelter from heat — But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet ; And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face. In the horrible likeness of demons (that none Could see, like invisible flames in the sun) ; But grew to one monster that seized on the light. 14 LYCUS THE CENTAUR Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night ; Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south ; Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth Engenders of slime in the land of the pest. Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, Bringing Night on their wings ; and the bodies wherein Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light ; I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close. When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes, That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws, And whirls of long tails : — I have seen the quick flutter Of fragments dissever'd, — and necks stretch'd to utter Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of blows. And wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close. When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings. And flew on the whirlwind that followed their wings. Thus they fled — not forgotten — but often to grow Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean I knew not, nor whether the love I had won Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun. In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky, Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye. And when in my musings I gazed on the stream. In motionless trances of thought, there would seem A face like that face, looking upward through mine ; With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned shine Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue Serene : — there I stood for long hours but to view Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted LYCUS THE CENTAUR 16 Between ; but the fish knew that presence, and plied Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside. There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things That once had been wonders — the fishes with wings, And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup. And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam. Slow winding along like a tide in the stream. Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I brought My wish to that fancy ; and often I dash'd My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink, Chiird by watery fears, how that beauty might sink With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear. Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear Came the tardy remembrance — Oh falsest of men ! Why was not that beauty remembered till then ? My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run Into mine — like a drop — that our fate might be one, That now, even now, — may-be, — clasped in a dream. That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream, And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another ! Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept With my brow in the reeds ; and the reeds to my ear Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear. Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one That loved me, — but oh to fly from her, and shun Her love like a pest — though her love was as true To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue ; 16 LYCUS THE CENTAUR For why should I love her with love that would bring All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing ? Because of her rival, — even Her whose witch-face I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank, Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank ; Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail To our love like a blight ; and they told me the tale Of Scylla, — and Picus, imprison'd to speak His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak. Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of my star That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush Of deep meditation, — when lo ! a light cnish Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the night Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipj)'d of the light Narrow-winking, the realised nymph of the stream. Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll'd Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold. Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind. Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal The blue that was in them ; — they ()i>ed and she raised Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed With her eyes on my eyes ; but their colour and shine Was of that which they look'd on, and mostly of mine — For she loved me, — except when she bluah'd, and they sank, Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank, Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me Would wing through the sun till she fainted away Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay LYCUS THE CENTAUR 17 In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. But now they were heal'd, — my heart, it still dances When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, And my image how small when it sank in the deep Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas ! now they weep, And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes Shed invisible tears ? Who beholds where her sighs Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf She has pluck'd with her tresses 1 Who listens her grief Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat Them together 1 Ah ! surely her flowers float adown To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin-brother Will miss him for ever ; and the sorrowful mother Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is, Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain ! We loved, — how we loved ! — for I thought not again Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that place If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown'd For my absence, — her arms were the arms that sought round And claspt me to nought ; for J gazed and became Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name For two loves, and calPd ever on -^gle, sweet maid Of the sky-loving waters, — and was not afraid Of the sight of her skin ; — for it never could be. Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me ! Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd space, Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face Had been with me for joy, — when she told me indeed Her love was self-task'd with a work that would need Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty, c 18 LYCUS THE CENTAUR Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep Of dreams, — but their meaning was hidden too deep To be read what their woe was ; — but still it was woe That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro In that river of night ; — and the gaze of their eyes Was sad, — and the bend of their brows, — and their cries Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears TraveU'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears Awaked me, and lo ! I was couchVl in a bower, The growth of long summers reared up in an hoiu* ! Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly From this magic, but could not, because that my eye Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ; and the earth Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear. Would startle the thrush] and methought there drew near A form as of iEgle, — but it was not the face Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place. Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death, Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed. Her spite — and her countenance changed with her mind As she plannM how to thrall me with beauty, and bind My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses play'd From shade into shine and from sliine into shade, Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, how fair ! With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair That clung round her neck, — those dark locks that I prize. For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they roll'd, And brighten'd, and suddenly blazed into gold That she oomVd into flames, and the locks that fell duwu LYCUS THE CENTAUR 19 Turn'd dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown, Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, That innocence wears when she is but a child ; And her eyes, — Oh I ne'er had been witched with their shine. Had they been any other, my ^Egle, than thine ! Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I madden'd In the full of their light, — ^but I sadden'd and sadden'd The deeper I looked, — till I sank on the snow Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe, And answered its throb with the shudder of fears. And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, And strain'd her white arms with the still languid weight Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame To hide me from her — the true jEgle — ^that came With the words on her lips the false witch had fore-given To make me immortal — for now I was even At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush Of world-sounds in my ear to cry welcome, and rush With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river. Oh, would it had flown from my body for ever, Ere I listened those words, when I felt with a start, The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart, And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell Had perished in horror — and heard the farewell Of that voice that was drown'd in the dash of the stream ! How fain had I followed, and plunged with that scream Into death, but my being indignantly lagg'd Through the brutalised flesh that I painfully dragged Behind me : — " Circe ! mother of spite ! Speak the last of that curse ! and imprison me quite In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name The man that I was, — that no kindred may claim The monster I am ! Let me utterly be Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonour with me Uninscribed !" — But she listened my prayer, that was praise c>» 20 LYCUS THE CENTAUR Tv> her malice, with smiles, and ad^dscd me to gaze Oa the river for love, — and perchance she would make la pity a maid without eyes for my sake. And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the wave. What monster I was, and it trembled and gave The true shape of my grief, and I turned with my face From all waters for ever, and fled through that place. Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass'd Its bounds, and the world was before mc at last. There I wandcr*d in sorrow, and shunn'd the abodes Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods, But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun On their cities, where man was a million, not one ; And I siiw the white smoke of their altars ascending, Tliat show'd where the hearts of the many were blending And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came From the truini)ets that gather'd whole bands in one fame As a chorus of man, — and they streamed from the gate^ lake a dusky libation pour'd out to the Fates. Hut at tinu>H there wore gentler processions of {)eace That 1 wutch'd witli my soul in my eyes till their cease, TlhTf were women ! there men ! but to me a tliird sex 1 Hiiw tht«ni all dots yet I loved them as specks : Ami oft to iwsuagi^ a sjid yearning of eyt^s I Htolo near the city, but stole covert-wise Like a wild lK\wt of love, and iH*n*hani*e to l>c smitten lly Home hand that I rather had wept on than bitten ! Oh, i once luvd a haunt near a cot where a mother hally Mit in the shade with her chiKl, and would smother ItM eyoUdM in kisACs, and then in its sleep Sung dreams in its ear of it8 munhiXHi, while deep In a thicket of willows I gaztnl oVr the briH>k8 That muruiurM Ivtwivn us and kissM them with looks ; Hut the willows unUKknuM their sivret, and never I returuM to a H(H>t I had startleil for ever, Tliough I oi\ longVl to know« but i\»uld ;uik it of none, Wad the mother »till fair, uud how big was her sout LYCUS THE CENTAUR 21 For the haunters of fields they all shunn'd me by flight, The men in their horror, the women in fright ; None ever remained save a child once that sported Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake lay Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away From the flower at his finger ; he rose and drew near Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear. But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright To grow to large manhood of merciful might. He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel, The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel. And questioned my face with wide eyes ; but when under My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder, He stroked me, and uttered such kindliness then. That the once love of women, the friendship of men In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss On my heart in its desolate day such as this ! And I yeam'd at his cheeks in my love, and down bent, And lifted him up in my arms with intent To kiss him, — but he cruel-kindly, alas ! Held out to my lips a pluck'd handful of grass ! Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled The stone he indignantly hurPd at my head, That dissevered my ear, — but I felt not, whose fate Was to meet more distress in his love than his hate ! Thus I wander'd, companioned of grief and forlorn Till I wish'd for that land where my being was bom. But what was that land with its love, where my home Was self-shut against me ; for why should I come Like an after-distress to my grey-bearded father, With a blight to the last of his sight ? — let him rather Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn To his son even such as he left him. Oh, how Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now 22 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEUFONT Like Gods to my humbled estate ? — or how bear The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care Of my hands ? Then I turned me self-banish'd, and came Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same As myself I have heard how they met by a stream In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream That made wretches of many, as she rolVd her wild eyes Against heaven, and so vanished. — The gentle and wise Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still. THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT Alas ! That breathing Vanity should go Where Pride is buried, — like its very ghost. Uprisen from the naked bones below. In novel flesh, clad in the silent boast Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro, Shedding its chilling superstition most On young and ignorant natures — as it wont To haunt the peaceful churchyard of Bedfont ! n Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer, Behold two maidens, up the quiet green Shining, far distant, in the summer air That flaunts their dewy robes and breatnes between Their downy plumes, — sailing as if they were Two far-off" ships, — until they bnish between The churchyard's humble walls, and watch and wait On either side of the wide open'd gate. THE TWO PKAC0CK8 OF BEDFONT 23 in And there they stand — with haughty necks before God's holy house, that points towards the skies — Frowning reluctant duty from the poor, And tempting homage from unthoughtfiil eyes : And Youth looks lingering from the temple door, Breathing its wishes in unfruitful sighs, With pouting lips, — ^forgetful of the grace. Of he^th, and smiles, on the heart-conscious face ; — IV Because that Wealth, which has no bliss beside. May wear the happiness of rich attire ; And those two sisters, in their silly pride. May change the soul's warm glances for the fire Of lifeless diamonds ; — and for health denied, — With art, that blushes at itself, inspire Their languid cheeks — and flourish in a glory That has no life in life, nor after-story. V The aged priest goes shaking his grey hair In meekest censuring, and turns his eye Earthward in grief, and heavenward in pray'r. And sighs, and clasps his hands, and passes by, Grood-hearted man ! what sullen soul would wear Thy sorrow for a garb, and constantly Put on thy censure, that might win the praise Of one so grey in goodness and in days ] VI Also the solemn clerk partakes the shame Of this ungodly shine of human pride. And sadly blends his reverence and blame In one grave bow, and passes with a stride Impatient : — many a red-hooded dame Turns her pain'd head, but not her glance, aside From wanton dress, and marvels o'er again. That heaven hath no wet judgments for the vain. 24 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT VII *' I have a lily in the bloom at home," Quoth one, " and by the blessed Sabbath day I'll pluck my lily in its pride, and come And read a lesson upon vain array ; — And when stiff silks are rustling up, and some Give place, I'll shake it in proud eyes and say — Making my reverence, — * Ladies, an you please, King Solomon's not half so fine as these.' " VIII Then her meek partner, who has nearly run His earthly course, — " Nay, Goody, let your text Grow in the garden. — We have only one — Who knows that these dim eyes may see the next 1 Summer will come again, and summer sun, And lilies too, — but I were sorely vext To mar my garden, and cut short the blow Of the last lily I may live to grow." IX "The last ! " quoth she, "and though the last it were — Lo ! those two wantons, where they stand so proud With waving plumes, and jewels in their hair. And painted cheeks, like Dagons to be bow'd And curtsey'd to ! — last Sabbath after pray'r, I heard the little Tomkins ask aloud If they were angels — ^but I made him know God's bright ones better, with a bitter blow ! " X So speaking, they pursue the pebbly walk That leads to the white porch the Sunday throng, Hand-coupled urchins in restrained talk, And anxious pedagogue that chastens wrong, And posied churchwarden with solemn stalk, And gold-bedizen'd beadle flames along, And gentle peasant clad in buff and green. Like a meek cowslip in the spring serene ; THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 25 XI And blushing maiden — modestly array'd In spotless white, — still conscious of the glass ; And she, the lonely widow, that hath made A sable covenant with grief, — alas ! She veils her tears under the deep, deep shade. While the poor kindly-hearted, as they pass, Bend to unclouded childhood, and caress Her boy, — so rosy ! — and so fatherless 1 XII Thus, as good Christians ought, they all draw near The fair white temple, to the timely call Of pleasant bells that tremble in the ear. — Now the last frock, and scarlet hood, and shawl Fade into dusk, in the dim atmosphere Of the low porch, and heav'n has won them all, — Saving those two, that turn aside and pass. In velvet blossom, where all flesh is grass. XIII Ah me ! to see their silken manors traiPd In purple luxuries — with restless gold, — Flaunting the grass where widowhood has wail'd In blotted black, — over the heapy mould Panting wave-wantonly ! They never quaiFd How the warm vanity abused the cold ; Nor saw the solemn faces of the gone Sadly uplooking through transparent stone : XIV But swept their dwellings with unquiet light. Shocking the awfiil presence of the dead ; Where gracious natures would their eyes benight, Nor wear their being with a lip too red. Nor move too rudely in the summer bright Of sun, but put staid sorrow in their tread. Meting it into steps, with inward breath. In very pity to bereaved death. 26 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT XV Now in the church, time-sobered minds resign To solemn pray'r, and the loud chaunted hymn,- With glowing picturings of joys divine Painting the mist-light where the roof is dim ; T>ut youth looks upward to the window shine, Warming with rose and purple and the swim Of gold, Jis if thought-tinted by the stains Of gorgeous light through many-colour'd panes ; XVI Soiling the virgin snow wherein God hath Enrobed his angels, — and with absent eyes Hearing of Heav'n, and its directed path. Thoughtful of slippers, — and the glorious skies Clouding with satin, — till the preacher's wrath Consumes his pity, and he glows and cries "With a deep voice that trembles in its might, And earnest eyes grown elocpient in light : XVII " Oh, that the vacant eye would learn to look On very beauty, and the heart embrace True loveliness, and from this holy book Drink the warm-breathing tendenicss and grace Of love indeed ! Oh, that the young soul took Its virgin passion from the glorious face Of fair religion, and addressM its strife. To win the riches of eternal life ! xviii " Doth the vain heart love glory that is none. And the poor excellence of vain attire ? Oh go, and drown your eyes against the sun, Tlie visible ruler of the starry quire, Till boiling gold in giddy eddies run, Dazzling the brain with orljs of living fire ; And the faint soul down-darkens into night, And dies a burning martyrdom to light. THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 27 XIX " Oh go, and gaze, — when the low winds of ev*n Breathe hymns, and Nature's many forests nod Their gold-crown'd heads ; and the rich blooms of heav'n Sun-ripen'd give their blushes up to God ; And mount£,in-rocks and cloudy steeps are riv'n By founts of fire, as smitten by the rod Of heavenly Moses, — that your thirsty sense May quench its longings of magnificence ! XX " Yet suns shall perish — stars shall fade away — Day into darkness — darkness into death — Death into silence ; the warm light of day. The blooms of summer, the rich glowing breath Of even — all shall wither and decay. Like the frail furniture of dreams beneath The touch of morn — or bubbles of rich dyes That break and vanish in the aching eyes." xxt They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour Their sin to earth, — and with low drooping bead Receive the solemn blessing, and implore Its grace — then soberly with chasten'd tread, They meekly press towards the gusty door With humbled eyes that go to graze upon The lowly grass — like him of Babylon. XXII The lowly grass ! — water-constant mind ! Fast-ebbing holiness ! — soon-fading grace Of serious thought, as if the gushing wind Through the low porch had wash'd it from the face For ever ! — How they lift their eyes to find Old vanities ! — Pride wins the very place Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow ! 28 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT XXIII And lo ! with eager looks they seek the way Of old temptation at the lowly gate ; To feast on feathers, and on vain array, And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state Of jewel-sprinkled locks. — But where are they. The graceless haughty ones that used to wait With lofty neck, and nods, and stiffened eye ? — None challenge the old homage bending by. XXIV In vain they look for the ungracious bloom Of rich apparel where it glow'd before, — For Vanity has faded all to gloom, And lofty Pride has stiffened to the core, For impious Life to tremble at its doom, — Set for a warning token evermore. Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise ShaU gaze with lifted hands and wond'ring eyes. XXV The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn. But shakes not sorrow under his grey hair ; The solemn clerk goes lavender'd and shorn Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair ; — And ancient lips that puckered up in scorn, Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray*r ; And in the garden-plot, from day to day, The lily blooms its long white life away. XXVI And where two haughty maidens used to be, In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod, Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly, Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod ; — There, gentle stranger, thou may'st only sec Two sombre Peacocks. Age, with sapient nod Marking the spot, still tarries to declare How they once lived, and wherefore they are there. HYMN TO THE SUN 29 HYMN TO THE SUN Giver of glowing light ! Though but a god of other days, The kings and sages Of wiser ages Still live and gladden in thy genial rays ! King of the tuneful lyre, Still poets' hymns to thee belong ; Though lips are cold Whereon of old Thy beams all turned to worshipping and song ! Lord of the dreadful bow, None triumph now for Python's death ; But thou dost save From hungry grave The life that hangs upon a summer breath. Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise ; But waking flow'rs At morning hours. Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies. Grod of the Delphic fane. No more thou listenest to hymns sublime ; But they will leave On winds at eve, A solemn echo to the end of time. 30 MIDNIGHT TO A SLEEPING CHILD MIDNIGHT Unfathomable Night ! how dost thou sweep Over the flooded earth, aud darkly hide The mighty city under thy full tide ; Making a silent palace for old Sleep, Like his own temple under the hush'd deep, Where all the busy day he doth abide, A.id forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide His dusky wings, whence the cold waters sweep ! How peacefully the living millions lie ! LuU'd unto death beneath his poppy spells ; There is no breath — no living stir — no cry — No tread of foot — no song — no music-call — Only the sound of melancholy bells — The voice of Time — survivor of them all ! TO A SLEEPING CHILD On, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep, — A tender infant with its curtain'd eye, Breathing as it would neither live nor die With that unchanging countenance of sleci) ! As if its silent dream, serene and deep, Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie With no more life than roses — ^just to keep The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. blossom boy ! so calm is thy repose, So sweet a compromise of life and death, 'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose For memory to stain their inward leaf. Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. _ . t'r^"J" TO A SLEEPING CHILD TO FANCY 31 TO A SLEEPING CHILD II Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd , No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay, I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd Of dimples : — for those parted lips so seem'd, I never thought a smile could sweetlier play, Nor that so graceful life could chase away Thy graceful death, — till those blue eyes upbeam'd. Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd, And roses bloom more rosily for joy, And odorous silence ripens into sound. And fingers move to sound. — All-beauteous boy ! How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove, If not more lovely thou art more like Love ! TO FANCY Most delicate Ariel ! submissive thing, Won by the mind's high magic to its best — Invisible embassy, or secret guest, — Weighing the light air on a lighter wing ; — Whether into the midnight moon, to bring Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, — Or rich romances from the florid West, — Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, — Still by thy charm'd allegiance to the will, The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain, As by the fingering of fairy skill, — Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain, Odours, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile. Making this dull world an enchanted isle. 32 FAIR INES FAIR INES SAW ye not fair Ines ? She's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down, And rob tlic world of rest : She took our daylight with her, The smiles that we love best. With morning blushes on her cheek, And pearls upon her breast. turn again, fair Ines, Before the fall of night, For fear the moon should shine alone, And stars unrivalPd bright ; And blessed will the lover be That walks beneath their light. And breathes the love against thy check 1 dare not even write ! Would I had been, fair Ines, That gallant cavalier. Who rode so gaily by thy side, And whispered thee so near ! Were there no bonny dames at home, Or no true lovers here. That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear 1 I saw thee, lovely Ines, Descend along the shore. With bands of noble gentlemen, And banners waved before ; And gentle youth and maidens gay. And snowy plumes they wore ; It would have been a beauteous dream, — If it had been no more ! TO A FALSE FRIEND 33 Alas, alas, fair Ines, She went away with song. With Music waiting on her steps, And shoutings of the throng ; But some were sad, and felt no mirth. But only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell, To her youVe loved so long. Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, That vessel never bore So fair a lady on its deck. Nor danced so light before,- Alas, for pleasure on the sea, And sorrow on the shore ! The smile that blest one lover's heart Has broken many more ! TO A FALSE FRIEND Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; Our hands will never meet again. Friends, if we have ever been. Friends we cannot now remain : I only know I loved you once, I only know I loved in vain ; Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; Our hands will never meet again ! Then farewell to heart and hand ! I would our hands had never met : Even the outward form of love Must be resigned with some regret. Friends, we still might seem to be, If I my wrong could e'er forget ; Our hands have join'd but not our hearts : I would our hands had never met ! D 34 AUTUMN ODE AUTUMN I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird woidd sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn ; Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn. Where are the songs of Summer 1 — With the sun. Oping the dusky eyelids of the south. Till shade and silence waken up as one. And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. Where are the merry birds 1 — Away, away, On panting wings through the inclement skies, Lest owls should prey Undazzled at noon-day. And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. Where are the blooms of Summer ? — In the west. Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest Like tearful Proserpine, snatchM from her flow'rs To a most gloomy breast. Where is the pride of Summer, — the green prime, - The many, many leaves all twinkling 1 — Three On the moss'd elm ; three on the naked lime Trembling, — and one upon the old oak tree ! Where is the Dryad's immortality ? — Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity. AUTUMN 35 The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard, The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain, And honey bees have stored The sweets of summer in their luscious cells ; The swallows all have wing'd across the main ; But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. Alone, alone. Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone. With the last leaves for a love-rosary ; Whilst all the withered world looks drearily. Like a dim picture of the drowned past In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away, Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last Into that distance, grey upon the grey. go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded Under the languid downfall of her hair ; She wears a coronal of flowers faded Upon her forehead, and a face of care ; — There is enough of wither'd everywhere To make her bower, — and enough of gloom ; There is enough of sadness to invite. If only for the rose that died, whose doom Is Beauty's, — she that with the living bloom Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light : There is enough of sorrowing, and quite Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear, — Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl ; Enough of fear and shadowy despair. To frame her cloudy prison for the soul ! 36 SONNETS SONNET SILENCE There is a silence where bath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound ; No voice is hush'd — no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. That never spoke, over the idle ground : But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyajna, calls. And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. SONNET WRITTEN IN KEATS' " ENDYMION." I SAW pale Dian, sitting by the brink Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains From cloudy steeps ; and I grew sad to think Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps In dear remembrance, — lonely, and forlorn, Singing it to herself until she weeps Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn :- And as I mused, in dull imaginings, There came a flash of garments, and I know The awful Muse by her harmonious wings Charming the air to music as she flew — Anon there rose an echo through the vale Gave back Endymion in a dreamlike tale. TO A COLD BEAUTY 37 SONNET TO AN ENTHUSIAST Young £w:dent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, A.nd still a large late love of all thy kind, Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, — For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind Thine eyes with tears, — that thou hast not resign'd The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : For as the current of thy life shall flow. Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd. Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen, Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordain'd To share beyond the lot of common men. TO A COLD BEAUTY Lady, wouldst thou heiress be To Winter's cold and cruel part 1 When he sets the rivers free, Thou dost still lock up thy heart ;- Thou that shouldst outlast the snow, But in the whiteness of thy brow ? Scorn and cold neglect are made For winter gloom and winter wind, But thou wilt wrong the summer air, Breathing it to words unkind, — Breath which only sliould belong To love, to sunlight, and to song ! SILENCE There is a silence where hath been no sound, There ia a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found. Which hath been mute, and still must sleep No voice is huah'd — no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. That never spohe, over the idle ground : Gut in green niins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been. Though the dun fox, or wild hyteno, calls. And owls, that flit continually between. Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, — ■ — ■ There the true Silence ia, self-conscious and alone. WKITTEN IN KEATS' " BNDYMIOS." I SAW pale Dian, sitting by the brink Of silver falls, the overflow of foitiitnins From cloudy stoc])s ; and I grew sad to think Endymlon's foot was silent on those mouutaii And he but a hnsh'd name, that Silence k In dear remembrance,— lonely, and forlorn, Singing it to herself until s" Tears, that perchanco Btill glisten in the mom ;- And as 1 mused, in dull imi ' ' There came a flaah o The awful Muse }sj h Charming tF Anon there n Gave back J TO A COLD BEAUTY SONNET ) AN ENTHUSIAST Young wdent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, ind still a large late love of all thy kind, Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, — For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind Thine eyes with tears,- — that thou hast not resign'd The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : For afi the current of thy life shall flow. Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd. Through flow'iy valley or unwholesome fen. Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordain'd To share beyond the lot of common men. TO A COLD BEAUTY liADY, wouldst thou heiress be To Winter's tvAd and ciwl [lartl When he sets tliu rivers free, Thou dost still lock up thy heart ;— Thou that shouldat outlast the snow, But in the wliitenpps of tliy brow J 38 SONNET When the little buds unclose, Red, and white, and pied, and blue, And that virgin flow'r, the rose. Opes her heart to hold the dew. Wilt thou lock thy bosom up With no jewel in its cup 1 Let not cold December sit Thus in Love's peculiar throne : Brooklets are not prison'd now. But crjrstal frosts are all agonc. And that which hangs upon the spray, It is no snow, Init flow'r of May ! SONNET DEATH It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its si)eechless flight ; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night ; That this warm conscious flesh sliall jverish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below ; It is not death to know this, — but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men. SERENADE VERSES IN AN ALBUM 39 SERENADE Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how I wake and passionate watches keep ; And yet while I address thee now, Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. 'Tis sweet enough to make me weep, That tender thought of love and thee. That while the world is hush'd so deep, Thy soul's perhaps awake to me ! Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep ! With golden visions for thy dower, While I this midnight vigil keep. And bless thee in thy silent bower ; To me 'tis sweeter than the power Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd, That I alone, at this still hour. In patient love out watch the world. VERSES IN AN ALBUM Far above the hollow Tempest, and its moan, Singeth bright Apollo In his golden zone, — Cloud doth never shade him, Nor a storm invade him. On his joyous throne. So when I behold me In an orb as bright. How thy soul doth fold me In its throne of light ! Sorrow never paineth. Nor a care attaineth To that blessed height 40 THE FORSAKEN THE FORSAKEN The (lead are in their silent graves, And the dew is cold above, And the living weep and sigh. Over dust that once was love. Once I only wept the dead, But now the living cause my pain : How couldst thou steal me from my tears, To leave me to my tears again ? My Mother rests beneath the sod, — Her rest is calm and very deep : I wish'd that she could see our loves, — But now I gladden in her sleep. Last night unbound my raven locks, The morning saw them tum'd to grey. Once they were black and well Moved, But thou art changed, — and so are they f The useless lock I gave thee once, To gaze upon and think of me. Was ta'en with smiles, — but this was torn In sorrow that I send to thee ! SONG 41 SONG The stars are with the voyager Wherever he may sail ; The moon is constant to her time ; The sun will never fail ; But follow, follow round the world, The green earth and the sea, So love is with the lover's heart, Wherever he may be. Wherever he may be, the stars Must daily lose their light ; The moon will veil her in the shade ; The sun will set at night. The sun may set, but constant love Will shine when he's away ; So that dull night is never night, And day is brighter day. 42 SONG SONG Lady, leave thy silken thread And flowery tapestrie : There's living roses on the bush, And blossoms on the tree ; Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand Some random bud will meet ; Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find The daisy at thy feet. 'Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom ; The light is made of many dyes, The air is all perfume ; There's crimson buds, and white and blue The very rainbow showers Have turn'd to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers. There's fairy tulips in the cast. The garden of the sun ; The very streams reflect the hues. And blossom as they nui : While Morn opes like a crimson rose, Still wet with pearly showers ; Then, lady, leave the silken thread Thou twinest into flowers ! BIRTHDAY VERSES 43 BIRTHDAY VERSES Good morrow to the golden morning, Good morrow to the world's delight— Tve come to bless thy life's beginning, Since it makes my own so bright ! I have brought no roses, sweetest, I could find no flowers, dear, — It was when all sweets were over Thou wert born to bless the year. But I've brought thee jewels, dearest. In thy bonny locks to shine, — And if love shows in their glances. They have learn'd that look of mine ! 44 I LOVE THEB I LOVE THEE I LOVE thee — I love thee ! *Tis all that I can say ; — It is my vision in the night, My dreaming in the day ; The very echo of my heart, The blessing when I pray : I love thee — I love thee ! Is all that I can say. I love thee — I love thee ! Is ever on my tongue ; In all my proudest poesy That chorus still is sung ; It is the verdict of my eyes, Amidst the gay and young : I love thee — I love thee ! A thousand maids among. I love thee — I love thee ! Thy bright and hazel glance, The mellow lute upon those lips. Whose tender tones entrance ; But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofs That still these words enhance, I love thee — I love thee ! Whatever be thy chance. LINES FALSE POETS AND TRUE 45 LINES Let us make a leap, my dear, In our love, of many a year, And date it very far away. On a bright clear summer day. When the heart was like a sun To itself, and falsehood none ; And the rosy lips a part Of the very loving heart. And the shining of the eye But a sign to know it by ; — When my faults were all forgiven, And my life deserved of Heaven. Dearest, let us reckon so. And love for all that long ago ; Each absence count a year complete, And keep a birthday when we meet. FALSE POETS AND TRUE TO WORDSWORTH Look how the lark soars upward and is gone, Turning a spirit as he nears the sky ! His voice is heard, but body there is none To fix the vague excursions of the eye. So, poets' songs are with us, tho' they die Obscured, and hid by death's oblivious shroud, And Earth inherits the rich melody Like raining music from the morning cloud. Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud Their voices reach us through the lapse of space : The noisy day is deafen'd by a crowd Of undistinguished birds, a twittering race ; But only lark and nightingale forlorn Fill up the silences of night and mom. 46 THE TWO SWANS THE TWO SWANS A FAIEY TALE Immortal Imogen, crowned queen above The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear A fairy dream in honour of true love — True above ills, and frailty, and all fear — Perchance a shadow of his own career Whose youth was darkly prisoned and long-twined By serpent-sorrow, till white Love drew near, And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may wind. II I saw a tower builded on a lake, Mock'd by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — That seemed a still intenscr night to make, Wherein the quiet waters sank to sleep, — And, whatso'er was pnson'd in that keep, A monstrous Snake was warden : — round and round In sable ringlets I beheld him creep Blackest amid black shadows to the ground. Whilst his enormous head the topmost turret crowned. THE TWO SWANS 47 III From whence he shot fierce light against the stars, Making the pale moon paler with affright ; And with his ruby eye out-threaten'd Mars — That blazed in the mid-heavens, hot and bright — Nor slept, nor wink'd, but with a steadfast spite Watch'd their wan looks and tremblings in the skies; And that he might not slumber in the night, The curtain-lids were pluck'd from his large eyes. So he might never drowse, but watch his secret prize. rv Prince or princess in dismal durance pent, Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate, Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent. Watching the lonely waters soon and late. And clouds that pass and leave them to their fate. Or company their grief with heavy tears :— Meanwhile that Hope can spy no golden gate For sweet escapement, but in darksome fears They weep and pine away as if immortal years. No gentle bird with gold upon its wing Will perch upon the grate — the gentle bird Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring Freedom's sweet key-note and commission- word Leam'd of a fairy's lips, for pity stirr'd — Lest while he trembling sings, untimely guest ! Watch'd by that cruel Snake and darkly heard, He leave a widow on her lonely nest. To press in silent grief the darlings of her breast. 48 THE TWO SWANS VI No gallant kuight, adventurous, in his bark, Will seek the fruitful perils of the place. To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark That bear that serpent image on their face. And Love, bnive Love ! though he attempt the base, Ner\'ed to his loyal death, he may not win His captive lady from the strict embrace Of that foul Serpent, clasping her within His sable folds — like Eve enthralFd by the old Sin. VII But there is none — no knight in panoply. Nor Love, intrenched in his strong steely coat : No little speck — no sail — no helper nigh, No sign — no whispering — no plash of boat : — The distant shores show dimly and remote, I^L'wle of a deeper mist, — serene and grey, — And slow and mute the cloudy shadows float Over the gloomy wave, and pass away, Chased by the silver beams that on their marges play. VIII And bright and silvery the willows sleep Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease Their hoary heads ; but cjuietly they weej) Their sprinkling leaves — half fountains and half trees : There lilies be — and fairer than all these, A solitary Swan her breast of snow Launches against the wave that seems to freeze Into a chaste reflection, still below Twin-shadow of herself wherever she may go. THE TWO SWANS 49 IX And forth she paddles in the very noon Of solemn midnight like an elfin thing, Charm'd into being by the argent moon — Whose silver light for love of her fair wing Goes with her in the shade, still worshipping Her dainty plumage ; — all around her grew A radiant circlet, like a fairy ring ; And all behind, a tiny little clue Of light, to guide her back across the waters blue. And sure she is no meaner than a fay. Redeemed from sleepy death, for beauty's sake, By old ordainment : — silent as she lay, Touched by a moonlight wand I saw her wake, And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake The verdant prison of her lily peers, That slept amidst the stars upon the lake — A breathing shape — restored to human fears, And new-born love and grief — self-conscious of her tears. XI And now she clasps her wings around her heart. And near that lonely isle begins to glide, Pale as her fears, and oft-times with a start Turns her impatient head from side to side In universal terrors — all too wide To watch ; and often to that marble keep Upturns her pearly eyes, as if she spied Some foe, and crouches in the shadows steep That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep. 50 THE TWO SWANS xn And well she may, to spy that fearfiil thing . All down the dusky walls in circlets wound ; Alas ! for what rare prize, with many a ring Girding the marble casket round and round ? His folded tail, lost in the gloom profound, Terribly darkeneth the rocky base ; But on the top his monstrous head is crown'd With prickly spears, and on his doubtful face Gleam his unwearied eyes, red watchers of the place. xni Alas ! of the hot fires that nightly fall, No one will scorch him in those orbs of spite, So he may never see beneath the wall That timid little creature, all too bright, That stretches her fair neck, slender and white. Invoking the pale moon, and vainly tries Her throbbing throat, as if to charm the night With song — but, hush — it perishes in sighs, And there will be no dirge sad-swelling, though she dies ! XIV She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake. Fainting again into a lifeless flower ; But soon the chiUy springs anoint and wake Her spirit from its death, and with new power She sheds her stifled sorrows in a shower Of tender song, timed to her falling tears — That wins the shady summit of that tower, And, trembling all the sweeter for its fears, Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's ears. THE TWO SWANS 51 XV And, lo ! the scaly beast is all deprest, Subdued like Argus by the might of sound — What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest To magic converse with the air, and bound The many monster eyes, all slumber-drown*d : — So on the turret-top that watchful Snake Pillows his giant head, and lists profound. As if his wrathful spite would never wake, Oharm'd into sudden ^eep for Love and Beauty's sake ! XVI His prickly crest lies prone upon his crown. And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies, To drink that dainty flood of music down — His scaly throat is big with pent-up sighs— And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies, His looks for envy of the charmed sense Are fain to listen, till bis steadfast eyes. Stung into pain by their own impotence, Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. XVII Oh, tuneful Swan ! oh, melancholy bird ! Sweet was that midnight miracle of song. Rich with ripe sorrow, needful of no word To tell of pain, and love, and love's deep wrong — Hinting a piteous tale — perchance how long Thy unknown tears were mingled with the lake, What time disguised thy leafy mates among — And no eye knew what human love and ache Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to break. 62 THE TWO SWANS xvin Therefore no poet will ungently touch The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such As human pain may wander through and through, Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — Wherein life dwells, transfigured, not entomb'd. By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew Sorrow in all its shapes, leafy and plumed, Or in gross husks of brutes eternally inhumed ? XIX And now the winged song has scaled the height Of that dark dwelling, builded for despair, And soon a little casement flashing bright Widens self-open*d into the cool air — That music like a bird may enter there And soothe the captive in his stony cage ; For there is nought of grief, or painful care. But plaintive song may happily engage From sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage. XX And forth into the light, small and remote, A creature, like the fair son of a king, Draws to the lattice in his jewell'd coat Against the silver moonlight glistening, And leans upon his white hand listening To that sweet music that with tenderer tone Salutes him, wondering what kindly thing Is come to soothe him with so tuneful moan. Singing beneath the walls as if for him alone ! THE TWO SWANS 53 XXI And while he listens, the mysterious song, Woven with timid particles of speech. Twines into passionate words that grieve along The melancholy notes, and softly teach The secrets of true love, — that trembling reach His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun He missions like replies, and each to each Their silver voices mingle into one, Like blended streams that make one music as they run. XXII " Ah ! Love, my hope is swooning in my heart, — " " Ay, sweet, my cage is strong and hung full high — " " Alas ! our lips are held so far apart. Thy words come faint, — they have so far to fly ! — " " If I may only shun that serpent-eye, — " " Ah me ! that serpent-eye doth never sleep ; — " " Then, nearer thee. Love's martyr, I will die ! — " " Alas, alas ! that word has made me weep ! For pity's sake remain safe in thy marble keep ! " XXIII " My marble keep ! it is my marble tomb — " " Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living breath — " " Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom 3 — " " But I will come to thee and sing beneath. And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath ; — " " Nay, I will find a path from these despairs." *' Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of death. Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs.- Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! " 54 THE TWO SWANS XXIV Full sudden at these words, the princely youth Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth. But numb'd to dulness by the fairy skill Of that sweet music (all more wild and shrill For intense fear) that charm'd him as he lay- Meanwhile the lover nerves his desperate will, Held some short throbs by natural dismay. Then down the serpent-track begins his darksome way. XXV Now dimly seen — now toiling out of sight, Eclipsed and cover'd by the envious wall ; Now fair and spangled in the sudden light, And clinging with wide arms for fear of fall ; Now dark and sheltered by a kindly pall Of dusky shadow from his wakeful foe ; Slowly he winds adown — dimly and small, Watch'd by the gentle Swan that sings below, Her hope increasing, still, the larger he doth grow. XXVI But nine times nine the serpent folds embrace The marble walls about — which he must tread Before his anxious foot may touch the base : Long is the dreary path, and must be sped ! But Love, that holds the mastery of dread, Braces his spirit, and with constant toil He wins his way, and now, with arms outspread, Im|)atietit plunges from the last long coil : So may all gentle Love ungentle Malice foil ! THE TWO SWANS 55 xxvn The song is hush'd, the charm is all complete, And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake : But scarce their tender bills have time to meet, When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — His steely scales a fearful rustling make, Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell The sable storm ; — the plimiy lovers quake — And feel the troubled waters pant and swell, Heaved by the giant bulk of their pursuer fell. xxvin His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, Hiss horrible pursuit — his red eyes glare The waters into blood — his eager breath Grows hot upon their plumes : — now, minstrel fair ! She drops her ring into the waves, and there It widens all around, a fairy ring Wrought of the silver light — the fearful pair Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing. XXIX Bending their course over the pale grey lake, Against the pallid East, wherein light play'd In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake Circled them round continually, and bay'd Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade The sanctuary ring — his sable mail Roll'd darkly through the flood, and writhed and made A shining track over the waters pale, Lash'd into boiling foam by his enormous tail. 56 THE TWO SWANS XXX And so they sailed into the distance dim, Into the very distance — small and white, Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim Over the brooklets — followed by the spite Of that huge Serpent, that with wild affright Worried them on their course, and sore annoy, Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light. And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy, LockM in embrace of sweet unutterable joy ! XXXI Then came the Morn, and with her pearly showers Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes Tears are no grief; and from his rosy bowers The Oriental sun began to rise, Cliasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; Wherewith that sable Serpent far away Fled, like a part of night — delicious sighs From waking blossoms purified the day, And little birds were singing sweetly from each spray. ODE TO CLAPHAM ACADEMY 57 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY 1 Ah me ! those old familiar botmds ! That classic house, those classic grounds My pensive thought recalls ! What tender urchins now confine, What little captives now repine, Within yon irksome walls 1 II Ay, that's the very house ! I know Ite ugly windows, ten a-row ! Its chimneys in the rear ! And there's the iron rod so high. That drew the thunder from the sky And tum'd our table-beer ! Ill There I was birch'd ! there I was bred ! There like a little Adam fed From Learning's woeful tree ! The weary tasks I used to con ! — The hopeless leaves I wept upon ! — Most fruitless leaves to me ! — IV The summoned class ! — the awful bow ! — I wonder who is master now And wholesome anguish sheds ! How many ushers now employs. How many maids to see the boys Have nothing in their heads ! ^ No connexion with any other Ode, 58 ODE TO CLAPHAM ACADEMY And Mrs. S * * * 1— Doth she abet (Like Pallas in the parlour) yet Some favour'd two or three, — The little Crichtons of the hour, Her muflfin-medals that devour, And swill her prize — bohea I VI Ay, there's the playground ! there's the lime. Beneath whose shade in summer's prime So wildly I have read ! — Who sits there now, and skims the cream Of young Romance, and weaves a dream Of Love and Cottage-bread ? VII Who struts the Randall of the walk ? Who models tiny heads in chalk 1 Who scoops the light canoe ? What early genius buds apace 1 Where's Poynter ? Harris ? Bowers ] Chase ? Hal Baylis 1 blithe Carew ? vni Alack ! they're gone — a thousand ways ! And some are serving in " the Greys," And some have perish'd young ! — Jack Harris weds his second wife ; Hal Baylis drives the imne of life ; And blithe Carew — is hung ! ODE TO CLAPHAM ACADEMY 59 IX Grave Bowers teaches ABO To savages at Owhyee ; Poor Chase is with the worms ! — All, all are gone — the olden breed ! — New crops of mushroom boys succeed, " And push us from our /orws / " Lo ! where they scramble forth, and shout. And leap, and skip, and mob about. At play where we have play'd ! Some hop, some run, (some fall,) some twine Their crony arms ; some in the shine, — And some are in the shade ! XI Lo there what mix'd conditions run ! The orphan lad ; the widow's son ; And Fortune's favoured care — The wealthy-born, for whom she hath Mac-Adamised the future path — The Nabob's pamper'd heir ! XII SoniiB brightly starr'd — some evil born, — For honour some, and some for scorn, — For fair or foul renown ! Good, bad, indifferent — none may lack ! Look, here's a White, and there's a Black ! And there's a Creole brown 1 60 ODE TO CLAPHAM ACADEMY XIII Some laugh and sing, some mope and weep, And wish their frugal sires would keep Their only sons at home ; — Some tease the future tense, and plan The full-grown doings of the man, And pant for years to come ! XIV A foolish wish ! There's one at hoop ; And four 2X fives f and five who stoop The marble taw to speed ! And one that curvets in and out, Reining his fellow Cob about, — Would I were in his steed ! XV Yet he would gladly halt and drop That boyish harness oflF, to swop With this world's heavy van — To toil, to tug. little fool ! While thou canst be a horse at school, To wish to be a man ! XVI Perchance thou deem'st it were a thing To wear a crown, — to be a king ! And sleep on regal down ! Alas ! thou knoVst not kingly cares ; Far happier is thy head that wears That hat without a crown ! ODE TO CLAPHAM ACADEMY 61 XVII And dost thou think that years acquire New added joys ? Dost think thy sire More happy than his son 1 That manhood's mirth 1 — Oh, go thy ways To Drury-lane when plct^s, And see how forced our fun ! XVIII Thy taws are brave ! — thy tops are rare ! — Our tops are spun with coils of care, Our dumps are no delight ! — The Elgin marbles are but tame. And 'tis at best a sorry game To fly the Muse's kite ! XIX Our hearts are dough, our heels are lead. Our topmost joys fall dull and dead Like balls with no rebound ! And often with a faded eye We look behind, and send a sigh Towards that merry ground ! XX Then be contented. Thou hast got The most of heaven in thy young lot ; There's sky-blue in thy cup ! Thou'lt find thy Manhood all too fast — Soon come, soon gone ! and Age at last A sorry hreaking-up ! 62 SONQ SONG There is dew for the floweret And honey for the bee, And bowers for the wild bird, And love for you and me. There are tears for the many And pleasures for the few ; But let the world pass on, dear, There's love for me and you. There is care that will not leave us, And pain that will not flee ; But on our hearth unaltered Sits Love — 'tween you and me. Our love it ne'er was reckoned, Yet good it is and true. It's half the world to me, dear. It's all the world to you. THE WATER LADY 63 THE WATER LADY Alas, the moon should ever beam To show what man should never see !- I saw a maiden on a stream, And fair was she ! I staid awhile, to see her throw Her tresses back, that all beset The fair horizon of her brow With clouds of jet. I staid a little while to view Her cheek, that wore in place of red The bloom of water, tender blue. Daintily spread. I staid to watch, a little space. Her parted lips if she would sing ; The waters closed above her face With many a ring. And still I staid a little more, Alas ! she never comes again ! I throw my flowers from the shore, And watch in vain. I know my life will fade away, I know that I must vainly pine. For I am made of mortal elay. But she's divine ! 64 AUTUMN AUTUMN The Autumn is old, The sere leaves are flying ; — He Lath gather'd up gold, ' And now he is dying ;— Old Age, begin sighing ! The vintage is ripe. The harvest is heaping ; — But some that have sow'd Have no riches for reaping ; — Poor wretch, fall a-weeping ! The year's in the wane, There is nothing adorning, The night has no eve. And the day has no morning ;- Cold winter gives warning. The rivers run chill. The red sun is sinking, And I am grown old. And life is fast shrinking ; — Here's enow for sad thinking ! I BEMEMBEB, I KEMEMBEK I REMEMBEE, I REMEMBER I BEMEMBEB, I remember, The house where I was bom, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at mom ; He never came a wink too soon. Nor brought too long a day. But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away ! I remember, I remember, The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups. Those flowers made of light ! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburnum on his birthday, — The tree is living yet ! I remember, I remember. Where I was used to swing. And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing ; My spirit flew in feathers then. That is so heavy now. And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow ! I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high ; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky : It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Heav'n Than when I was a boy. F /e/' GO THE poet's portion THE POET'S PORTION What is a mine — a treasury — a dower — A magic talisman of mighty power ? A poet's wide possession of the earth. He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth Before its budding — ere the first red streaks, — And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks. Look — if his dawn be not as other men's ! Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens The first of sunlight is abroad — he sees Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees, And ojx^s the splendid fissures of the mom. When do his fruits delay, when doth his com Linger for harvesting 1 Before the leaf Ls (»omnu)nly abraad, in his piled sheaf Tlio Hiigging iwppies lose their ancient flame. No sweet there is, no pleasure I cau name, But he will sip it first — before the lees. 'Tis his to taste rich honey, — ere the \tecB Arc busy with the brooms. He may forestall .lunes n>sv advent for his coronal ; l>t^fore th' expectant buds uix)n the bough, Twining his thoughts ti> bloi>m uj»on bis brow. Oh ! blest to sec the flower in its seeil. Before its IcAfy presence : for indeed Leaves arc but wings on which the summer flies, And each thing perishable fades and dies, Kscip'd in thought ; but his rich thinkings be Like overflows of immortal] tv : So that what there is steep'd sliall perish never. But live and bloom, and be a jc»y for ever. ODE TO THE MOON 67 ODE TO THE MOON Mother of light ! how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led ! — Art thou that huntress of the silver bow, Fabled of old 1 Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow. Where hunter never climb'd, — secure from dread 1 How many antique fancies have I read Of that mild presence ! and how many wrought ! Wondrous and bright, Upon the silver light, Chasing fair figures with the artist, Thought ! II What art thou like 1 — Sometimes I see thee ride A far-bound galley on its perilous way, Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray ; — Sometimes behold thee glide. Clustered by all thy family of stars. Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide, Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars ; — Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep, Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch, Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep. To catch the young Endymion asleep, — Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch ! — ni Oh, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be ! Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named ; And he, the veriest Pagan, that first framed A silver idol, and ne'er worshipped thee ! — It is too late — or thou should'st have my knee — OH OliK TO THE MOOX Too late now for th(; old Kphesiau vows, Aud not divine the creucent on thy brows ! — Yet, call thtr iiothiu;^ but the mere mild Moon, ] behind thoHe cheKtiiut boughs, Casting their dajiphfd shadows at my feet ; I will \h'. grateful for tliat simple Ijoon, In many a thuugiitful verse and anthem sweet, And bleiiH thy dainty face whene'er we meet. IV In nights far gone, ay, far away and dead, — JJ^'furo ( -are fretted, with a lidless eye, — I Wiui thy wiMMT on my little bed, liuttiiig tht'. nirly Ikuu-h of rest go by. To Ht«» tiu'u iliMKl the lieaven with milky light, And IWmI thy snow white swans, before I slept; Kiir tliou wert tlien purveyor of my dreams, — Thou wort tho fairies' armoun»r, that kept Thiur burnirihM )u*lms, and crowns, and corslets bright, Tiuiir H^K'^irs, and glittering uudls ; And ever thou diiist spill in winding streams Siuirkles and midnight gleams, b'i»r lUheH to new gloss their argent scales ! — V \V \\y Highs '/ w hy creeping tears 1 — why clasped hands 1 U it ti» count the bi^y's expetded dow*r? That fairit^ Hiiui^ liuve broke their gifted wands 1 Th«a young lUdight, like any oVrblown flow r, {h%\\\ OHO by one» it* 8wet*t leaves to the gn>und1 — \\ h> I lion, fiiir ^llKm, for idl thou markst no hour, 'V\\\H\ HI ( a iiaddcr ditd to old Time 'V\\i\\\ over 1 have found Ou iiUMuy Kav^len plot, or auvw-gn^wn tow'r, MoUo'\( y^\x\\ Atom and melancholy rhyme. ODE TO THE MOON 69 VI Why should I grieve for this ? — Oh I must yearn Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory, Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn, Richly emboss'd with childhood's revelry, With leaves and clustered fruits, and flow'rs eterne,- (Etemal to the world, though not to me), Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be, The deathless wreath, and undecay'd festoon, When I am hearsed within, — Less than the pallid primrose to the Moon, That now she watches through a vapour thin. VII So let it be : — Before I lived to sigh, Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills. Beautiful Orb ! and so, whene'er I lie Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills, And blessed thy fair face, Mother mild ! Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run, Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond. And blend their plighted shadows into one :- Still smile at even on the bedded child. And close his eyelids with thy silver wand ! 70 SONNET SONNET WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF 8HAKSPEABE How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled ! Hues of all flow'rs, that in their ashes lie, Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, — Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, — Like exhalations from the leafy mould. Look here how honour glorifies the dead. And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold !- Such is the memory of poets old, Who on Parnassus' hill have bloom*d elate ; Now they are laid under their marbles cold. And tum'd to clay, whereof they were create ; But god Apollo hath them all enroU'd, And blazon'd on the very clouds of Fate ! A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW 71 A RETEOSPECTIVE EEVIEW Oh, when I was a tiny boy, My days and nights were full of joy, My mates were blithe and kind ! — No wonder that I sometimes sigh. And dash the tear-drop from my eye. To cast a look behind ! II A hoop was an eternal round Of pleasure. In those days I found A top a joyous thing ; — But now those past delights I drop. My head, alas ! is all my top, And careful thoughts the string ! Ill My marbles — once my bag was stored,- Now I must play with Elgin's lord, With Theseus for a taw ! My playful horse has slipt his string, Forgotten all his capering. And harness'd to the law ! IV My kite — how fast and far it flew ! Whilst I, a sort of Franklin, drew My pleasure from the sky ! 'Twas papered o'er with studious themes. The tasks I wrote — my present dreams Will never soar so high ! 72 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW My joys are wingless all and dead ; My dumps are made of more than lead ; My flights soon find a fall ; My fears prevail, my fancies droop, Joy never cometh with a hoop, And seldom with a call ! VI My football's laid upon the shelf; I am a shuttlecock myself The world knocks to and fro ; — My archery is all unlearned, And grief against myself has tum'd My arrows and my bow ! VII No more in noontide sun I bask ; My authorship's an endless task, My head's ne'er out of school : My heart is pain'd with scorn and slight, I have too many foes to fight, And friends grown strangely cool ! VIII The very chum that shared my cake Holds out so cold a hand to shake, It makes me shrink and sigh : — On this I will not dwell and hang, — The changeling would not feel a pang Thougli these should meet bis eye J A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW 73 IX No skies so blue or so serene As then ; — no leaves look half so green As clothed the playground tree ! All things I loved are alter'd so, Nor does it ease my heart to know That change resides in me ! Oh for the garb that mark'd the boy, The trousers made of corduroy, Well ink'd with black and red ; The crownless hat, ne'er deem'd an ill- It only let the sunshine still Repose upon my head ! XI Oh for the riband round the neck ! The careless dogs'-ears apt to deck My book and collar both ! How can this formal man be styled Merely an Alexandrine child, A boy of larger growth ? XII Oh for that small, small beer anew ! And (heaven's own type) that mild sky-blue That wash'd my sweet meals down ; The master even ! — and that small Turk That fagg'd me ! — worse is now my work — A fag for all the town ! 74 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW xin Oh for the lessons learn'd by heart ! Ay, though the very birch's smart Should mark those hours again ; I'd " kiss the rod," and be resigned Beneath the stroke, and evon find Some sugar in the cane ! XIV The Arabian Nights rehearsed in bed ! The Fairy Tales in school-time read, By stealth, 'twixt verb and noun ! The angel form that always walk'd In all my dreams, and looked and talkM Exactly like Miss Brown ! XV The omne bene — Christmas come ! The prize of merit, won for home — Merit had prizes then ! But now I write for days and days. For fame — a deal of empty praise. Without the silver pen ! XVI Then " home, sweet home ! " the crowded coacb- The joyous shout — the loud approach — The winding horns like rams' ! The meeting sweet that made me thrill. The sweetmeats, almost sweeter still, No * satis ' to the 'jams ' ! — BALLAD 75 xvn When that I was a tiny boy My days and nights were fiill of joy, My mates were blithe and kind ! No wonder that I sometimes sigh, And dash the tear-drop from my eye. To cast a look behind ! BALLAD It was not in the Winter Our loving lot was cast ; It was the Time of Roses, — We pluck'd them as we passed ! That churlish season never frown'd On early lovers yet : — Oh, no — the world was newly crown'd With flowers when first we met ! 'Twas twilight, and I bade you go, But still you held me fast ; It was the Time of Roses, — We pluck'd them as we pass'd. — What else could peer thy glowing cheek. That tears began to stud ? And when I ask'd the like of Love, You snatch'd a damask bud ; And oped it to the dainty core. Still glowing to the last. — It was the Time of Roses, — We pluck'd them as we pass'd ! 76 TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY TIME, HOPE, AND MEMOEY I HEARD a gentle maiden, in the spring, Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing : " Fly through the world, and I will follow thee. Only for looks that may turn back on me ; " Only for roses that your chance may throw — Though withered — I will wear them on my brow, To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, — Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again. " Thy love before thee, I must tread behind. Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind ; But trust not all her fondness, though it seem. Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream. " Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet ; But smiles betray, and music sings deceit ; And words speak false ; — yet, if they welcome prove, 111 be their echo, and repeat their love. " Only if waken'd to sad truth, at last, The bitterness to come, and sweetness past ; When thou art vext, then turn again, and see Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved thee." FLOWERS 77 FLOWERS I WILL not have the mad Clytie, Whose head is turned by the sun ; The tulip is a courtly quean, Whom, therefore, I will shun ; The cowslip is a country wench. The violet is a nun ; — But I will woo the dainty rose, The queen of every one. The pea is but a wanton witch, In too much haste to wed. And clasps her rings on every hand ; The wolfsbane I should dread ; Nor will I dreary rosemarye. That always mourns the dead ; — But I will woo the dainty rose. With her cheeks of tender red. The lily is all in white, like a saint. And so is no mate for me — And the daisy's cheek is tipp'd with a blush. She is of such low degree ; Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves. And the broom's betroth'd to the bee ; — But I will plight with the dainty rose. For fairest of all is she. 78 BALLAD BALLAD She's up and gone, the graceless girl, And robb'd my failing years ! My blood before was thin and cold But now 'tis turn'd to tears ; — My shadow falls upon my grave, So near the brink I stand, She might have stay'd a little yet, And led me by the hand ! Aye, call her on the barren moor, And call her on the hill : 'Tis nothing but the heron's cry, And plover's answer shrill ; My child is flown on wilder wiugs Than they have ever spread. And I may even walk a waste That widen'd when she fled. Full many a thankless child has been, But never one like mine ; Her meat was served on plates of gold. Her drink was rosy wine ; But now she'll share the robin's food. And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again To meet her father's will ! RUTH 79 EUTH She stood breast high amid the corn Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won. On her cheek an autumn flush, Deeply ripen'd ; — such a blush In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn. Roimd her eyes her tresses fell. Which were blackest none could tell, But long lashes veil'd a light. That had else been all too bright. And her hat, with shady brim, Made her tressy forehead dim ; — Thus she stood amid the stooks. Praising God with sweetest looks : — Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean, Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, Lay thy sheaf adown and come, / \Share my harvest and my home. 80 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 'TwAS in that mellow season of the year When the hot sun singes the yellow leaves Till they be gold, — and with a broader sphere The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves ; When more abundantly the spider weaves, And the cold wind breathes from a chillier clime ; — That forth I fared, on one of those still eves, Touched with the dewy sadness of the time. To think how the bright months had spent their prime, II So that, wherever I addressed my way, I seem'd to track the melancholy feet Of him that is the Father of Decay, And spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ; — Wherefore regretfully I made retreat To some unwasted regions of my brain, Charm'd with the light of summer and the heat, And bade that bounteous season bloom again, And sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain. Ill It was a shady and sequester'd scene, Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio, Planted with his own laurels evergreen, And roses that for endless summer blow ; And there were fountain springs to overflow Their marble basins, — and cool green arcades Of tall overarching sycamores, to throw Athwart the dappled path their dancing shades, — With timid coneys cropping the green blades. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIKIES 81 IV And there were crystal pools, peopled with fish, Argent and gold ; and some of Tyrian akin, Some crimson-barr'd ; — and ever at a wish They rose obsequious till the wave grew thin As glass upon their backs, and then dived in. Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom ; Whilst others with fresh hues row'd forth to win My changeable regard, — for so we doom Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom. And there were many birds of many dyes. From tree to tree still faring to and fro, And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes, And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow. Like Iris just laedabbled in her bow, Besides some vocalists, without a name, That oft on fairy errands come and go, With accents magical ; — and all were tame. And peckled at my hand where'er I came. VI And for my sylvan company, in lieu Of Pampinea with her lively peers. Sate Queen Titania with her pretty crew. All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears. For she was gracious to my childish years. And made me free of her enchanted round ; Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears, And plants her court upon a verdant mound. Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves profound. G 82 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES VII " Ah me," she cries, " was ever moonlight seen So clear and tender for our midnight trips 1 Go some one forth, and with a trump convene My lieges all ! " — Away the goblin skips A pace or two apart, and deftly strips The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek, Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips, Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, Like a fray'd bird in the grey owlet's beak. VIII And lo ! upon my fix'd delighted ken Appear'd the loyal Fays. — Some by degrees Crept from the primrose buds that opened then. And some from bell-shaped blossoms like the bees. Some from the dewy meads, and nishy leas. Flew up like chafers when the nistics pass ; Some from the rivers, others from tall trees Dropped, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass, Spirits and elfins smaU, of every class. IX Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic, Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain ; And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic, Came too, from distance, in lier tiny wain, Fresh dripping from a cloud — some bloomy rain, Then circling the bright Moon, had wash'd her car, And still bedew'd it with a various stain : Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star. Who bears all fairy embassies afar. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 83 But Oberon, that night elsewhere exiled, Was absent, whether some distempered spleen Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled, Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been Sometime obnoxious), kept him from his queen, And made her now peruse the starry skies Prophetical, with such an absent mien ; Howbeit, the tears stole often to her eyes. And oft the Moon was incensed with her sighs — XI Which made the elves sport drearily, and soon Their hushing dances languish'd to a stand, Like midnight leaves, when, as the Zephyrs swoon, All on their drooping stems they sink unfann'd, — So into silence drooped the fairy band. To see their empress dear so pale and still, Crowding her softly round on either hand, As pale as frosty snowdrops, and as chill. To whom the sceptred dame reveals her ill. XII "Alas," quoth she, "ye know our fairy lives Are leased upon the fickle faith of men ; Not measured out against Fate's mortal knives. Like human gossamers, — ^we perish when We fade and are forgot in worldly ken, — Though poesy has thus prolonged our date. Thanks be to the sweet Bard's auspicious pen That rescued us so long ! — howbeit of late I feel some dark misgivings of our fate. 84 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES xm " And this dull day my melancholy sleep Hath been so thronged with images of woe, That even now I cannot choose but weep To think this was some sad prophetic show Of future horror to befall us so, — Of mortal wreck and uttermost distress, — Yea, our poor empire's fall and overthrow, — For this was my long vision's dreadful stress, And when I waked my trouble was not less. XIV " Whenever to the clouds I tried to seek, Such leaden weight dragg'd these Icarian wings, My faithless wand was wavering and weak. And slimy toads had trespassed in our rings — The birds refused to sing for me — all things Disown'd their old allegiance to our spells ; The rude bees prick'd me with their rebel stings ; And, when I passed, the valley-lily's bells Rang out, methought, most melancholy knells. XV " And ever on the faint and flagging air A doleful spirit with a dreary note Cried in my fearful ear, * Prepare ! prepare ! ' Which soon I knew came from a raven's throat, Perch'd on a c3rpre8s-bough not far remote, — A cursed bird, too crafty to be shot, That alway cometh with his soot-black coat To make hearts dreaiy : — for he is a blot Upon the book of life, as well ye wot ! — THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 85 XVI " Wherefore some while I bribed him to be mute, With bitter acorns stuffing his foul maw, Which barely I appeased, when some fresh bruit Startled me all aheap ! — and soon I saw The horridest shape that ever raised my awe, — A monstrous giant, very huge and tall, Such as in elder times, devoid of law. With wicked might grieved the primeval ball, And this was sure the deadliest of them all ! XVII " Gaunt was he as a wolf of Languedoc, With bloody jaws, and frost upon his crown ; So from his barren poll one hoary lock Over his wrinkled front fell far adown, Well nigh to where his frosty brows did frown Like jagged icicles at cottage eaves ; And for his coronal he wore some brown And bristled ears gathered from Ceres' sheaves, Entwined with certain sere and russet leaves. XVIII " And lo ! upon a mast rear'd far aloft. He bore a very bright and crescent blade. The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft. In meditative spite, that, sore dismayed, I crept into an acorn-cup for shade ; Meanwhile the horrid effigy went by : I trow his look was dreadful, for it made The trembling birds betake them to the sky, For every leaf was lifted by his sigh. ."^t^ TirR i'LEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES XIX '• Attil over, oh ho sigh'tl, his foggy breath lUiirrM out tho landscapo like a flight of smoko : Thoiioo knew I thin was either dreary Death Or TIiik;, who loadH all creatures to his stroke. Ah wr«t<;h(ul me !" — Here, even as she spoke, Tho melancholy Shape came gliding in, And leaned his back against an antique oak, Folding his wings, that were so fine and thin, *V\wy Bcarco wore seen against the Dryad's skin. XX TluMi what a four aoizod all tho little rout ! \iKH\k Ikow a ilook of i^nickM slioop will stare — And huddlo oU«i^- and start — and wlund alnnit, NVrt tolling tho rtwuniui: numgrtd hon* and there. So did that HUildon Api^irition 8i\iro All oloisk* tdioap thivto juuall atlVightinl things ; N\»r «o\^ht thoy now tho aafotv of tho air. Ah it* m^nio U'^adon »ivH withhold thoir wings ; l»ut who i*au tly that Hikoiont«N»t of Kings? XXl \Yhv*iu w>»w tho i^Vtoon, with a ifon»tijdUu^ tear Avd |»r\'\u»u* *i^h, U^rinueth lo oiur^^AU lNKld'>.tt; hisu *j>aro, ?\»r K»w, her li?-^** dear : *• AIa* * "^ 04ivih *hf^ " i* thi*rv ro uv\I.U:xj: wh«k: vH v*cu*.i».MiKj: tN*:5!,-iivfv.t» tor ?hy d^fwi: ? THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 87 XXII " fret away the fabric walls of Fame, And grind down marble Osesars with the dust : Make tombs inscriptionless — raze each high name, And waste old armours of renown with rust : Do all of this, and thy revenge is just : Make such decays the trophies of thy prime, And check Ambition's overweening lust. That dares exterminating war with Time, — But we are guiltless of that lofty crime. XXIII " Frail feeble sprites ! — the children of a dream ! Leased on the sufferance of fickle men. Like motes dependent on the sunny beam, Living but in the sun's indulgent ken, And when that light withdraws, withdrawing then ;- So do we flutter in the glance of youth And fervid fancy, — and so perish when The eye of faith grows aged ; — in sad truth. Feeling thy sway, Time ! though not thy tooth ! XXIV " Where be those old divinities forlorn. That dwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream ? Alas ! their memories are dimmed and torn, Like the remainder tatters of a dream : So will it fare with our poor thrones, I deem ; — For us the same dark trench Oblivion delves. That holds the wastes of every human scheme. O spare us then, — and these our pretty elves, — We soon, alas ! shall perish of ourselves ! " / 88 TRE PLEA OP THE MTDSUilMER FAIRIES XXV Now as she ended, with a si;rh, to name Those old Olympians, scattered by the whirl Of Fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, Mcthought a scornful and mali^ant curl Sliow'd r)n the lips of that malicious churl, To think what noble havocs he had made ; So that I fearM he all at once would hurl The harmless fairies into endless shade, — Howbeit he stopped awhile to whet his blade. XXVI Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail Rise up in concert from their mingled dread. Pity it was to see them, all so pale. Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed ; — T>ut l*uck was seated on a spider's thread. That hung between two branches of a briar. And 'gan to swing and gambol, heels o'er head. Like any Southwark tumbler on a wire. For him no present grief could long inspire. xxvn Meanwhile the Queen with many jiiteous drops, Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free, IUhIows a i>athway from her throne ; — and stops licforc the foot of her arch enemy, And with her little arms enfolds his knee, That shows more grisly from that fair embrace : l>ut she will ne er dej^rt. " Alas ! " quoth she, ** My painful fingers I will here enlace Till I have gaiu'd your pity for our race. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 89 XXVIII "What have we ever done to earn this grudge, And hate — (if not too humble for thy hating 1)— Look o'er our labours and our lives, and judge If there be any ills of our creating ; For we are very kindly creatures, dating With nature's charities still sweet and bland : — think this murder worthy of debating ! " Herewith she makes a signal with her hand, To beckon some one from the Fairy band. XXIX Anon I saw one of those elfin things, Clad all in white like any chorister. Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, That made soft music at each little stir, But something louder than a bee's demur Before he lights upon a bunch of broom. And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, — And his voice was sweet, touch 'd with the gloom Of that sad theme that argued of his doom ! XXX Quoth he, " We make all melodies our care, That no false discords may offend the Sun, Music's great master — tuning everywhere All pastoral sounds and melodies, each one Duly to place and season, so that none May harshly interfere. We rouse at morn The shrill sweet lark ; and when the day is done, Hush silent pauses for the bird forlorn. That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 90 THE PLEA. OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES XXXI " We gather in loud choirs the twittering race, That make a chorus with their single note ; And tend on new-fledged birds in every place, That duly they may get their tunes by rote ; And oft, like echoes, answering remote. We hide in thickets from the feather'd throng, And strain in rivalship each throbbing throat, Singing in shrill responses all day long. Whilst the glad traant listens to our song. XXXII " Wherefore, great King of Years, as thou dost love The raining music from a morning cloud. When vanished larks are carolling above. To wake Apollo with their pipings loud ; — If ever thou hast heard in leafy shroud The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell, Show thy sweet mercy on this little crowd, And we will muffle up the sheepfold bell Whene'er thou listenest to Philomel." XXXIII Then Saturn thus : — " Sweet is the merry lark. That carols in man's ear so clear and strong ; And youth must love to listen in the dark That tuneful elegy of Tereus' wrong ; But I have heard that ancient strain too long, For sweet is sweet but when a little strange. And I grow weary for some newer song ; For wherefore had I wings, unless to range Through all things mutable, from change to change ? THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 91 XXXIV " But wouldst thou hear the melodies of Time, Listen when sleep and drowsy darkness roll Over hush'd cities, and the midnight chime Sounds from their hundred clocks, and deep bells toll Like a last knell over the dead world's soul, Saying, * Time shall be final of all things. Whose late, last voice must elegise the whole,' — then I clap aloft my brave broad wings. And make the wide air tremble while it rings ! " XXXV Then next a fair Eve-Fay made meek address. Saying, " We be the handmaids of the Spring ; In sign whereof. May, the quaint broideress. Hath wrought her samplers on our gauzy wing. We tend upon buds' birth and blossoming. And count the leafy tributes that they owe — As, so much to the earth — so much to fling In showers to the brook — so much to go In whirlwinds to the clouds that made them grow. XXXVI " The pastoral cowslips are our little pets. And daisy stars, whose firmament is green ; Pansies, and those veil'd nuns, meek violets, Sighing to that warm world from which they screen ; And golden daffodils, pluck'd for May's Queen ; And lonely harebells, quaking on the heath ; And Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen. Whose tuneful voice, turn'd fragrance in his breath, Kiss'd by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death. ^5 THK PLEA OF THE MmSUMMER FAIRIES XXXVII *^ The widow'd primrose weeping to the moon And saffron crocus in whose chalice bright A cool libation hoarded for the noon Is kept — and she that purifies the light, Tlio virgin lily, faithful to her white, Whereon Eve wept in Eden for her shame ; And the most dainty rose, Aurora's spright, Our every godchild, by whatever name — Spare us our lives, for we did nurse the same ! " xxxvin Then that old Mower stamped his heel, and struck His hurtful scythe against the harmless groimd, Saying, " Ye foolish imps, when am I stuck With gaudy buds, or like a wooer crown'd With flow'ry chaplets, save when they are found WitherM 1 — Whenever have I pluck'd a rose, Except to scatter its vain leaves around ? For so all gloss of beauty I oppose. And bring decay on every flowV that blows. " Or when am I so wroth as when I view The wanton pride of Summer ; — how she decks The birthday world with blossoms ever-new, As if Time had not lived, and heapM great wrecks Of years on years ? — then I bravely vex And catch the gay Months in their gaudy plight, And slay them with the wreaths about their necks. Like foolish heifers in the holy rite, And raise great trophies to my ancient might." THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 93 XL Then saith another, " We are kindly things, And like her oflfepring nestle with the dove, — Witness these hearts embroidered on our wings, To show our constant patronage of love : — We sit at even, in sweet boVrs above Lovers, and shake rich odours on the air. To mingle with their sighs ; and still remove The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear Their privacy, and haunt some other where. XLI " And we are near the mother when she sits Beside her infant in its wicker bed ; And we are in the fairy scene that flits Across its tender brain : sweet dreams we shed. And whilst the tender little soul is fled Away, to sport with our young elves, the while We touch the dimpled cheek with roses red. And tickle the soft lips until they smile, So that their careful parents they beguile. XLn " O then, if ever thou hast breathed a vow At Love's dear portal, or at pale moon-rise Orush'd the dear curl on a regardful brow. That did not frown thee from thy honey prize — If ever thy sweet son sat on thy thighs, And wooed thee from thy careful thoughts within To watch the harmless beauty of his eyes, Or glad thy fingers on his smooth soft skin, For Love's dear sake, let us thy pity win ! " 94 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIKIES XUU Then Saturn fiercely thus : — " What joy have I In tender babes, that have devoured mine own, Whenever to the light I heard them cry, Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone 1 Whereon, till now, is my great hunger shown. In monstrous dint of my enormous tooth ; And — but the peopled world is too full grown For hunger's edge — I would consume all youth At one great meal, without delay or ruth ! XLIV " For I am well nigh crazed and wild to hear How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, Saying, ' We shall not die nor disappear, But, in these other selves, ourselves succeed Ev'n as ripe flowers pass into their seed Only to be renewed from prime to prime,' All of which boastings I am forced to read. Besides a thousand challenges to Time, Which bragging lovers have compUed in rhyme. XLV " Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o* nights. There will I steal and with my hurried hand Startle them suddenly from their delights Before the next encounter hath been plann'd^ Ravishiug hours in little minutes spann'd ; But when they say farewell, and grieve apart, Then like a leaden statue I will stand, Meanwhile their many tears encrust my dart, And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart" THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 95 XLVI Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood Each at his proper ease, as they had been Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, And wore the livery of Robin Hood, Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup, — So came this chief right frankly, and made good His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, DoflBng his cap, which was an acorn's cup : — XLVII » " We be small foresters and gay, who tend On trees, and all their furniture of green, Training the young boughs airily to bend, And show blue snatches of the sky between ; — Or knit more close intricacies, to screen Birds' crafty dwellings, as may hide them best, But most the timid blackbird's — she that, seen. Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest. Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast. XLVIII " We bend each tree in proper attitude, And founting willows train in silvery falls ; We frame all shady roofs and arches rude. And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls. Or deep recesses where the Echo calls ; — We shape all plumy trees against the sky, And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals, — When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply, Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh. 96 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES XLIX " Sometimes we scoop the squirrers hollow cell, And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, That haply some lone musing wight may spell Dainty Aminta, — Gentle Rosalind, — Or chastest Laura, — sweetly calFd to mind In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down ; — And sometimes we enrich grey stems with twined And vagrant ivy, — or rich moss, whose brown Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down. "And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer. We bear the seedling berries, for increase. To graft the Druid oaks^ from year to year. Careful that mistletoe may never cease ; — Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace Of sombre forests, or to see light break Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake. Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake." LI Then Saturn, with a frown : — " Go forth, and fell Oak for your coflBns, and thenceforth lay by Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy The next green generation of the tree ; But hence with the dead leaves, whene'er they fly, — Which in the bleak air I would rather see, Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 97 LII " For I dislike all prime, and verdant pets, Ivy except, that on the aged wall Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets The crambled tower it seems to league withal. King-like, worn down by its own coronal : — Neither in forest haunts love I to won. Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall. And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves on. Or bare — like Nature in her skeleton. LIU " For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs, "Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs ; And there in rustling nuptials we espouse, Smit by the sadness in each other's eyes ; — But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies. And must be courted with the gauds of Spring ; Whilst Youth leans god-like on her lap, and cries, ' What shall we always do, but love and sing ? ' — And Time is reckoned a discarded thing." LIV Here in my dream it made me fret to see How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while Had blithely jested with calamity. With mis-timed mirth mocking the doleful style Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile To see him so reflect their grief aside. Turning their solemn looks to half a smile — Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide ;- But soon a novel advocate I spied. H 98 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES LV Quoth he — " We teach all natures to fulfil Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet,- The bee's sweet alchemy, — the spider's skill, — The pismire's care to garner up his wheat, — And rustic masonry to swallows fleet, — The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest, — But most, that lesser pelican, the sweet And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast. Its tender pity of poor babes distrest. LVI *' Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves From our example ; so the spider spins. And eke the silk- worm, pattern 'd by ourselves : Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves Of early bees, and busy toils commence, Watch'd of wise men, that know not we are elves, But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense, And praise our human-like intelligence. LVII "Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale, And plaintive dirges the late robins sing, What time the leaves are scatter'd by the gale, Mindful of that old forest burying ; — As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing, For whom our craft most curiously contrives, If thou hast caught, a bee upon the wing, To take his honey-bag, — spare us our lives, And we will pay the ransom in full hives." THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 99 LVIII "Now by my glass," quoth Time, "ye do offend In teaching the brown bees that careful lore. And frugal ants, whose millions would have end, But they lay up for need a timely store, And travail with the seasons evermore ; Whereas Great Mammoth long hath pass'd away, And none but I can tell what hide he wore ; Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day. In riddling wonder his great bones survey." LIX Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold. Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun Hath all embroider'd with its crooked gold. It was so quaintly wrought and overrun With spangled traceries, — most meet for one That was a warden of the pearly streams ; — And as he stept out of the shadows dun, His jewels sparkled in the pale moon's gleams, And shot into the air their pointed beams. LX Quoth he, — " We bear the gold and silver keys Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below Course thro' the veiny earth, — which when they freeze Into hard crysolites, we bid to flow. Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as they go, We guide their windings to melodious falls. At whose soft murmurings, so sweet and low. Poets have tuned their smoothest madrigals. To sing to ladies in their banquet-halls. 100 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES LXI " And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat Parches the river god, — whose dusty um Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet Against his pebbly floor wax faint and burn And languid fish, unpoised, grow sick and yearn,— Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook, And little channels dig, wherein we turn The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook The Naiad-lily, pining for her brook. LXII " Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads. With living sappliires daintily inlaid, — In all soft songs of waters and their reeds, — And all reflections in a streamlet made. Haply of thy own love, that, disarmy'd. Kills the fair lily with a livelier white, — By silver trouts upspringing from green shade, And winking stars reduplicate at night. Spare us, poor ministers to such delight" LXIII Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks Moved not the spiteful Shade; — Quoth he, "Your taste Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks And slavish rivulets that run to waste In noontide sweats, or, like poor vassals, haste To swell the vast dominion of the sea, In whose great presence I am held disgraced. And neighboured with a king that rivals me In ancient might and hoary majesty. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 101 LXIV " Whereas I ruled in Chaos, and still keep The awful secrets of that ancient dearth, Before the briny fountains of the deep Brimm'd up the hollow cavities of earth ; — I saw each trickling Sea-God at his birth, Each pearly Naiad with her oozy locks. And infant Titans of enormous girth. Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks, Stunning the early world with frequent shocks. LXV " Where now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood. That scared the world ? — By this sharp scythe they fell. And half the sky was curdled with their blood : So have all primal giants sigh'd farewell. No wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell. Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done That strove with Time, untimely, to excel ; Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none But my great shadow intercepts the sun ! " LXVI Then saith the timid Fay—" Oh, mighty Time ! Well hast thou wrought the cruel Titans' fall, For they were stain'd with many a bloody crime : Great giants work great wrongs, — ^but we are small. For love goes lowly ; — but Oppression 's tall. And with surpassing strides goes foremost still Where love indeed can hardly reach at all ; Like a poor dwarf o'erburthen'd with good will, That labours to efface the tracks of ill. — 102 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES LXVII " Man even strives with Man, but we eschew The guilty feud, and all fierce strifes abhor ; Nay, we are gentle as the sweet heaven's dew, l>cside the red and horrid drops of war. Weeping the cruel hates men battle for, Wliich worldly bosoms nourish in our spite : For in the gentle breast we ne'er withdraw, But only when all love hath taken flight, And youth's warm gracious heart is harden'd quite. LXVIII " So are our gentle natures intertwined With sweet humanities, and closely knit In kindly sympathy with human kind Witness how we befriend, with elfin wit, All hopeless maids and lovers, — nor omit Magical succours unto hearts forlorn : — We charm man's life, and do not perish it ; — So judge us by the helps we showed this morn, To one who held his wretched days in scorn. LXIX " 'Twas nigh sweet Amwell ; — for the Queen had task'd Our skill to-day amidst the silver Lea, Wbereon the noontide sun had not yet bask'd ; Wherefore some patient man we thought to see. Planted in moss-grown rushes to the knee, Beside the cloudy margin cold and dim ; — llowbeit no ])atient fisherman was he That cast his sudden shadow from the brim, Making us leave our toils to gaze on him. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 103 LXX " His face was ashy pale, and leaden care Had sunk the leveird arches of his brow, Once bridges for his joyous thoughts to fare Over those melancholy springs and slow, That from his piteous eyes began to flow. And fell anon into the chilly stream ; Which, as his mimick'd image show'd below, Wrinkled his face with many a needless seam, Making grief sadder in its own esteem. LXXI " And lo ! upon the air we saw him stretch His passionate arms ; and, in a wayward strain. He 'gan to elegise that fellow wretch That with mute gestures answer'd him again, Saying, * Poor slave, how long wilt thou remain Life's sad weak captive in a prison strong. Hoping with tears to rust away thy chain, In bitter servitude to worldly wrong ? — Thou wear'st that mortal livery too long ! ' LXXII " This, with more spleenful speeches and some tears. When he had spent upon the imaged wave. Speedily I convened my elfin peers Under the lily-cups, that we might save This woeful mortal from a wilful grave By shrewd diversions of his mind's regret. Seeing he was mere Melancholy's slave. That sank wherever a dark cloud he met. And straight was tangled in her secret net. 104 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES LXXIII ** Therefore, as still he watched the water's flow, Daintily we transformed, and with bright fins Came glancing through the gloom ; some from below Rose like dim fancies when a dream begins, Snatching the light upon their purple skins ; Then under the broad leaves made slow retire : One like a golden galley bravely wins Its radiant course, — another glows like fire, — Making that wayward man our pranks admire. LXXIV " And so he banish'd thought, and quite forgot All contemplation of that wretched face ; And so we wiled him from that lonely spot Along the river's brink ; till, by heaven's grace, He met a gentle haunter of the place, Full of sweet wisdom gather'd from the brooks. Who there discuss'd his melancholy case With wholesome texts leam'd from kind nature's books, Meanwhile he newly trimm'd his lines and hooks." LXXV Herewith the Fairy ceased. Quoth Ariel now- " Let me remember how I saved a man. Whose fatal noose was fasten'd on a bough, Intended to abridge his sad life's span ; For haply I was by when he began His stern solilociuy in life's dispraise, And overheard his melancholy plan. How he had made a vow to end his days. And therefore foUow'd him in all his ways, THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 105 LXXVI " Through brake and tangled copse, for much he loathed All populous haunts, and roam'd in forests rude. To hide himself from man. But I had clothed My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued. Where only foxes and wild cats intrude, Till we were come beside an ancient tree Late blasted by a storm. Here he renewed His loud complaints, — choosing that spot to be The scene of his last horrid tragedy. LXXVII " It was a wild and melancholy glen. Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark. Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, Push'd through the rotten sod for fear's remark ; A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark. Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray, Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark, Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey, With many blasted oaks moss-grown and grey. LXXVIII " But here upon his final desperate clause Suddenly I pronounced so sweet a strain. Like a pang'd nightingale, it made him pause, Till half the frenzy of his grief was slain. The sad remainder oozing from his brain In timely ecstasies of healing tears. Which through his ardent eyes began to drain ; — Meanwhile the deadly Fates unclosed their shears :- So pity me and all my fated peers ! " 106 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIiUES LXXIX Thus Ariel ended, and was some time hush'd : When with the hoary shape a fresh tongue pleads, And red as rose the gentle Fairy blush'd To read the records of her own good deeds : — " It chanced," (juoth she, "in seeking through the meads For honied cowslips, sweetest in the morn. Whilst yet the buds were hung with dewy beads, And Echo answered to the huntsman's horn, We found a babe left in the swarths forlorn. LXXX " A little, sorrowful, deserted thing. Begot of love, and yet no love begetting ; Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring ; And too soon banish'd from a mother's petting, To churlish nurture and the wide world's fretting, For alien pity and unnatural care ; — Ahis ! to see how the cold dew kept wetting His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair, Like gossamers across his forehead fair. LXXXI " His pretty pouting mouth, witless of speech. Lay half-way open like a rose-lipp'd shell ; And his young cheek was softer than a peach, Whereon his tears, for roundness, could not dwell. But quickly roll'd themselves to pearls, and fell. Some on the grass, and some agiiinst his hand. Or liaply waiider'd to the dimpled well, Which love beside his mouth had sweetly plann'd, Yet not for tears, but mirth and sinilings bland. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 107 LXXXII " Pity it was to see those frequent tears Falling regardless from his friendless eyes ; There was such beauty in those twin blue spheres, As any mother's heart might leap to prize ; Blue were they, like the zenith of the skies Softened betwixt two clouds, both clear and mild ;- Just touch'd with thought, and yet not over wise, They show'd the gentle spirit of a child, Not yet by care or any craft defiled. LXXXIII " Pity it was to see the ardent sun Scorching his helpless limbs — it shone so warm ; For kindly shade or shelter he had none. Nor mother's gentle breast, come fair or storm. Meanwhile I bade my pitying mates transform Like grasshoppers, and then, with shrilly cries, All round the infant noisily we swarm, Haply some passing rustic to advise — Whilst providential Heaven our care espies, LXXXIV " And sends full soon a tender-hearted hind, Who, wond'ring at our loud unusual note, Strays curiously aside, and so doth find The orphan child laid in the grass remote. And laps the foundling in his russet coat, Who thence was nurtured in his kindly cot : — But how he prosper'd let proud London quote. How wise, how rich, and how renown'd he got, And chief of all her citizens, I wot. 108 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES LXXXV " Witness his goodly vessels on the Thames, Whose holds were fraught with costly merchandise,- Jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, And gorgeous silks that Samarcand supplies : Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise. The mart of merchants from the East and West ; Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies, Still bears, in token of his grateful breast. The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest — LXXXVI "The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest. That all the summer, with a tuneful wing, Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest, Inspirited with dew to leap and sing : — So let us also live, eternal King ! Partakers of the green and pleasant earth : — Pity it is to slay the meanest thing. That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth Enough there is of joy's decrease and dearth ! LXXXVII " Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty, Perish'd and gone, and hasting to decay ; — Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty Or spite it is to havoc and to slay : Too many a lovely race razed (luite away. Hath left large gaps in life and human loving : — Here then begin thy cruel war to stay. And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, reproving Thy desolating hand for our removing." THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 109 LXXXVIII Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry, And, looking up, I saw the antic Puck Grappling with Time, who clutch'd him like a fly. Victim of his own sport, — the jester's luck ! He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had stuck His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow. And now his ear, and now his beard, would pluck ; Whereas the angry churl had snatch'd him now. Crying, " Thou impish mischief, who art thou ? " LXXXIX " Alas ! " quoth Puck, " a little random elf, Born in the sport of nature, like a weed, For simple sweet enjoyment of myself. But for no other purpose, worth, or need ; And yet withal of a most happy breed ; And there is Robin Goodfellow besides. My partner dear in many a prankish deed To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides. Like merry mummers twain on holy tides. xc " Tis we that bob the angler's idle cork, Till e'en the patient man breathes half a curse ; We steal the morsel from the gossip's fork. And curdling looks with secret straws disperse. Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse : And when an infant's beauty prospers ill. We change, some mothers say, the child at nurse But any graver purpose to fulfil. We have not wit enough, and scarce the will. no THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES XCI " We never let the canker melancholy To gather on our faces like a rust, I Jut glass our features with some change of folly, Taking life's fahled miseries on trust, But only sorrowing when sorrow must : We ruminate no sage's solemn cud, But own ourselves a pinch of lively dust To frisk upon a wind, — whereas the flood Of tears would tuni us into heavy mud. XCII " Beshrew those sad interpreters of nature, Who gloze her lively universal law. As if she had not form'd our cheerful feature To be so tickled with the slightest straw I So let them vex their mumping mouths, and draw The corners downward, like a wat'ry moon. And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw — We will not woo foul weather all too soon. Or nurse November on the lap of June. XCIII " For ours are winging sprites, like any bird. That shun all stagnant settlements of grief ; And even in our rest our hearts are stirr'd. Like insects settled on a dancing leaf: — This is our small philosophy in brief, Which thus to teach hath set me all agape : But dost thou relish it t hoarv chief ! Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape, And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape." THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 111 XCIV Then Saturn thus : — shaking his crooked blade Overhead, which made aloft a lightning flash In all the fairies' eyes, dismally fray'd ! His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash — Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash — " Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing ! Whom nought can frighten, sadden, or abash, — To hope my solemn countenance to wring To idiot smiles ! — but I will prune thy wing ! xcv " Lo ! this most awful handle of my scythe Stood once a May-pole, with a flowery crown. Which rustics danced around, and maidens blithe, To wanton pipings ; — but I pluck'd it down. And robed the May Queen in a churchyard gown. Turning her buds to rosemary and rue ; And all their merry minstrelsy did drown. And laid each lusty leaper in the d^ ; — So thou shalt fare — and every jovial crew ! " xcvi Here he lets go the struggling imp, to clutch His mortal engine with each grisly hand, Which frights the elfin progeny so much. They huddle in a heap, and trembling stand All round Titania, like the queen bee's band. With sighs and tears and very shrieks of woe !- Meanwhile, some moving argument I plann'd. To make the stern Shade merciful, — ^when lo ! He drops his fatal scythe without a blow ! 112 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES XCVII For, just at need, a timely Apparition Steps in between, to bear the awful brunt ; Making him change his horrible position, To marvel at this comer, brave and blunt. That dares Time's irresistible affront, Whose strokes have scarr'd even the gods of old ;- Whereas this seem'd a mortal, at mere hunt For coneys, lighted by the moonshine cold. Or stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. xcvni Who, turning to the small assembled fays, Doffs to the lily queen his courteous cap, And holds her beauty for a while in gaze, With bright eyes kindling at this pleasant hap ; And thence upon the fair moon's silver map, As if in question of this magic chance. Laid like a dream upon the green earth's lap ; And then upon old Saturn turns askance. Exclaiming, with a glad and kindly glance : — xcix " Oh, these be Fancy's revellers by night ! Stealthy companions of the downy moth — Diana's motes, that flit in her pale light, Shunners of sunbeams in diurnal sloth ; — These be the feasters on night's silver cloth ; — The gnat with shrilly trump is their convener, Forth from their flowery chambers, nothing loth, With lulling tunes to charm the air serener. Or dance upon the grass to make it greener. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 113 " These be the pretty genii of the flow'rs, Daintily fed with honey and pure dew — Midsummer's phantoms in her dreaming hours, King Oberon, and all his merry crew, The darling puppets of romance's view ; Fairies, and sprites, and goblin elves we call them, Famous for patronage of lovers true ; — No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them, So do not thus with crabbed frowns appal them." CI what a cry was Saturn's then ! — it made The fairies quake. " What care I for their pranks. However they may lovers choose to aid, Or dance their roundelays on flow'ry banks ? — Long must they dance before they earn my thanks, - So step aside, to some far safer spot. Whilst with my hungry scythe I mow their ranks, And leave them in the sun, like weeds, to rot. And with the next day's sun to be forgot." en Anon, he raised afresh his weapon keen ; But still the gracious Shade disarm'd his aim, Stepping with brave alacrity between, And made his sere arm powerless and tame. His be perpetual glory, for the shame Of hoary Saturn in that grand defeat ! — But I must tell how here Titan ia came With all her kneeling lieges, to entreat His kindly succour, in sad tones, but sweet. I lU THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES cm Saying, " Thou secst a wretched queen before thee, Tlic fadiri;; pr)wcr of a failing laud, Who for a kingdom kneeleth to implore thee, Now menaced by this tyrant's spoiling hand ; No one but thee can hopefully withstand That crooked blade, he longeth so to lift. I pray thee blind him with his own vile sand, Which only times all ruins by its drift. Or prune his eagle wings that are so swift. CIV " Or take him by that sole and grizzled tuft, That hangs upon his bald and barren crown ; And we will sing to see him so rebuff^, And lend our little mights to jmll him down, And make brave 8iK)rt of his malicious frown, For Jill his boastful mockery o'er men. For thou W{tst born, I know, for this renown, By my most magical and inward ken. That readeth cv'n at Fate's forestalling pen. cv " Nay, by the golden lustre of thine eye, And by thy brow's most fair and ample span, Thought's glorious palace, framed for fancies high. And by thy cheek thus passionately wan, I know the signs of an immortal man, — Nature's chief darling, and illustrious mate. Destined to foil old Death's oblivious plan, And shine untarnish'd by the fogs of Fate, Time's famous rival till the final date ! THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 115 CVI " shield us then from this usurping Time, And we will visit thee in moonlight dreams ; And teach thee tunes, to wed unto thy rhyme, And dance about thee in all midnight gleams. Giving thee glimpses of our magic schemes, Such as no mortal's eye hath ever seen ; And, for thy love to us in our extremes, Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green, Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been ! CVII " And we'll distil thee aromatic dews, To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flow'rs ; And flavour'd syrups in thy drinks infuse. And teach the nightingale to haunt thy bow'rs. And with our games divert thy weariest hours. With all that elfin wits can e'er devise. And, this churl dead, there'll be no hasting hours To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies " : — Here she was stopp'd by Saturn's furious cries. CVIII Whom, therefore, the kind Shade rebukes anew. Saying, " Thou haggard Sin, go forth, and scoop Thy hollow coffin in some churchyard yew. Or make th' autumnal flow'rs turn pale, and droop ; Or fell the bearded com, till gleaners stoop Under fat sheaves, — or blast the piny grove ; — But here thou shalt not harm this pretty group. Whose lives are not so frail and feebly wove, But leased on Nature's loveliness and love. 116 THE PLE.\ OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES CIX " 'Tis these that free the small entangled fly, Caught in the venom'd spider's crafty snare ; — These be the petty surgeons that apply The healing balsams to the wounded hare, Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care ! — These be providers for the orphan brood. Whose tender mother hath been slain in air, Quitting with gaping bill her darlings' food. Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. ex K r Tis these befriend the timid trembling stag, When, with a bursting heart beset with fears, He feels his saving speed begin to flag ; For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, And prompt fresh shifts in his alarum'd cars, 80 piteously they view all bloody morts ; Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears. Like noisy pyes and jays, with harsh rejKjrts, They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. CXI " For these are kindly ministers of nature, To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress ; Pretty they be, and very small of stature, — For mercy still consorts with littleness ; — Wherefore the sum of good is still the less, And mischief grossest in this world of wrong ; — So do these charitable dwarfs redress The tenfold ravages of giants strong, To whom great malice and great might belong. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 117 CXII " Likewise to them are Poets much beholden For secret favours in the midnight glooms ; Brave Spenser quaff'd out of their goblets golden, And saw their tables spread of prompt mushrooms, And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, Like humming bees busy about the brooms, — And glanced this fair queen's witchery full oft, And in her made wain soar'd far aloft CXIII " Nay I myself, though mortal, once was nursed By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth, And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, Telliug me wonders of the moon and earth ; My gramarye at her grave lap I conn'd, Where Puck hath been convened to make me mirth ; I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, And toy'd with Oberon's permitted wand. cxiv " With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me. And delicate cates after my sunset meal, And took me by my childish hand, and led me By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel. Whose awful bases deep dark woods conceal. Staining some dead lake with their verdant dyes : And when the West sparkled at Phoebus' wheel. With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes. To let me see their cities in the skies. 118 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES CXV " 'Twas they first schooPd my young imagination To take its flights like any new-fledged bird, And show'd the span of winged meditation Stretch'd wider than things grossly seen or heard. With sweet swift Ariel how I soar'd and stirr'd The fragrant blooms of spiritual bow'rs ! Twas they endeared what I have still preferred, Nature's blest attributes and balmy pow'rs, Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and flow'rs ! cxvi " Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty Will I regard them in my honouring rhyme, With love for love, and homages to beauty. And magic thoughts gather'd in night's cool clime. With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; So these dear monarchs of the summer's prime Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells. Till shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells." CXVII Look how a poisoned man turns livid black, Drugg'd with a cup of deadly hellebore, That sets his horrid features all at rack, — So seem'd these words into the ear to pour Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage, Wherewith his grisly arm he raised once more. And bade the cluster'd sinews all engage. As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age. THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 119 CXVIII Whereas the blade flash'd on the dinted ground, Down through his steadfast foe, yet made no scar On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound ; But Time was long benumb'd, and stood ajar, And then with baffled rage took flight afar. To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom, Or meaner fames (like mine) to mock and mar, Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom. Whetting its edge on some old Caesar's tomb. cxix Howbeit he vanished in the forest shade. Distantly heard as if some grumbling pard. And, like Nymph Echo, to a sound decay'd ; — Meanwhile the fays cluster'd the gracious Bard, The darling centre of their dear regard : Besides of sundry dances on the green. Never was mortal man so brightly starr'd, Or won such pretty homages, I ween. " Nod to him. Elves ! " cries the melodious queen. cxx " Nod to him. Elves, and flutter round about him, And quite enclose him with your pretty crowd, And touch him lovingly, for that, without him. The silkworm now had spun our dreary shroud ; — But he hath all dispersed Death's tearful cloud, And Time's dread effigy scared quite away : Bow to him then, as though to me ye bow'd, And his dear wishes prosper and obey Wherever love and wit can find a way ! 120 THE PLEA. OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES CXXI " 'Noint him with fairy dews of magic savours, Shaken from orient buds still pearly wet, Roses and spicy pinks, — and, of all favours. Plant in his walks the purple violet, And meadow-sweet under the hedges set. To mingle breaths with dainty eglantine And honeysuckles sweet, — nor yet forget Some pastoral flowery chaplets to entwine. To vie the thoughts about his brow benign ! CXXII " Let no wild things astonish him or fear him. But tell them all how mild he is of heart, Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him. And eke the dappled does, yet never start ; Nor shall their fawns into the thickets dart. Nor wrens forsake their nests among the leaves, Nor s[)eckled thrushes flutter far apart ; — But bid the sacred swallow haunt his eaves, To guard his roof from lightning and from thieves. CXXIII " Or when he goes the nimble squirrel's visitor, Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts, For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor, — Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience shuts, For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts, — Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings, However he may watch their straw-built huts ; — So let him learn the crafts of all small things, Which he will hint most aptly when he sings." THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 121 CXXIV Here she leaves off, and with a graceful hand Waves thrice three splendid circles round his head ; Which, though deserted by the radiant wand, Wears still the glory which her waving shed. Such as erst crown'd the old Apostle's head. To show the thoughts there harbour'd were divine, And on immortal contemplations fed : — Goodly it was to see that glory shine Around a brow so lofty and benign ! — cxxv Goodly it was to see the elfin brood Contend for kisses of his gentle hand. That had their mortal enemy withstood. And stay'd their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. Long while this strife engaged the pretty band ; But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm. Challenged the dawn creeping o'er eastern land. And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm, Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. cxxvi And soon the rolling mist, that 'gan arise From plashy mead and undiscovered stream, Earth's morning incense to the early skies. Crept o'er the failing landscape of my dream. Soon faded then the Phantom of my theme — A shapeless shade, that fancy disavow'd. And shrank to nothing in the mist extreme. Then flew Titania, — and her little crowd, Like flocking linnets, vanish'd in a cloud. 122 HERO AND LEANDER HERO AND LEANDER TO S. T. COLERIDGE It is not \vith a hope my feeble praise Can add one moment's honour to thy own, That with thy mighty name I grace these lays ; I seek to glorify myself alone : For that some precious favour thou hast shown To my endeavour in a bygone time, And by this token I would have it known Thou art my friend, and friendly to my rhjTiie ! It is my dear ambition now to climb Still higher in thy thought, — if my bold pen May thrust on contemplations more sublime. — But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when We gain applauses from the great in name. We seem to be partakers of tlieir fame. Oh Bards of old ! what sorrows have ye sung, And tragic stories, chronicled in stone, — Sad Philomel restored her ravish'd tongue, And transformed Niobe in dumbness shown ; Sweet Sappho on her love for ever calls. And Hero on the drown'd Leander falls ! n Was it that spectacles of sadder plights Should make our blisses relish the more high % Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knights, Whose flourished fortunes prosper in Love's eye, Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief. Traced from the course of an old bas-relief. HERO AND LEANDER 123 III There stands Abydos ! — here is Sestos' steep, Hard by the gusty margin of the sea, Where sprinkling waves continually do leap ; And that is where those famous lovers be, A builded gloom shot up into the grey, . As if the first tall watch-tow'r of the day. IV Lo ! how the lark soars upward and is gone ; Turning a spirit as he nears the sky, His voice is heard, though body there is none, And rain-like music scatters from on high ; But Love would follow with a falcon spite. To pluck the minstrel from his dewy height. V For Love hath framed a ditty of regrets. Tuned to the hollow sobbings on the shore, A vexing sense, that with like music frets. And chimes this dismal burthen o'er and o'er, Saying, Leander's joys are past and spent, Like stars extinguished in the firmament. VI For ere the golden crevices of mom Let in those regal luxuries of light. Which all the variable east adorn. And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side. Must leave a widow where he found a bride. VII Hark ! how the billows beat upon the sand ! Like pawing steeds impatient of delay ; Meanwhile their rider, lingering on the land, Dallies with love, and holds farewell at bay A too short span. — How tedious slow is grief ! But parting renders time both sad and brief. 124 HERO AND LEANDER VIII "Alas ! " (he sigh'd), " that this first glimpsing light, Which makes the wide world tenderly appear, Should be the burning signal for my flight From all the world's best image, which is here ; Whose very shadow, in my fond compare, Shines far more bright than Beauty's self elsewhere." IX Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark. Whose leaves close up and show the outward pale, And those fair mirrors where their joys did spark, All dim and tarnish'd with a dreary veil. No more to kindle till the night's return. Like stars replenished at Joy's golden urn. X Ev'n thus they creep into the spectral grey. That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim, As when two shadows by old Lethe stray, He clasping her, and she entwining him ; Like trees, wind-parted, that embrace anon, — True love so often goes before 'tis gone. XI For what rich merchant but will pause in fear. To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss 1 So Hero dotes upon her treasure here. And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss. Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head, Fear aggravating fear with shows of dread. XII She thinks how many have been sunk and drown'd, And spies their snow-white bones below the deep, Then calls huge congregated monsters round. And plants a rock wherever he would leap ; Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream, Which she interprets of that fatal stream. HERO AND LEANDER 125 XII [ Sajdng, " That honied fly I saw was thee, Which lighted on a water-lily's cup, When, lo ! the flower, enamoured of my bee. Closed on him suddenly and locked him up. And he was smother'd in her drenching dew ; Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue." XIV But next, remembering her virgin fame. She clips him in her arms and bids him go. But seeing him break loose, repents her shame. And plucks him back upon her bosom's snow ; And tears unfix her iced resolve again. As steadfast frosts are thaw'd by showVs of rain. XV for a type of parting ! — Love to love Is like the fond attraction of two spheres, Which needs a godlike efibrt to remove. And then sink down their sunny atmospheres. In rain and darkness on each ruin'd heart, Nor yet their melodies will sound apart. XVI So brave Leander sunders from his bride ; The wrenching pang disparts his soul in twain ; Half stays with her, half goes towards the tide, — And life must ache, until they join again. Now wouldst thou know the wideness of the wound ? — Mete every step he takes upon the ground. XVII And for the agony and bosom-throe, Let it be measured by the wide vast air, For that is infinite, and so is woe. Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. Look how it heaves Leander's labouring chest, Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest 1 126 HERO AND LEANDER XVIII From which he leaps into the scooping brine, That shocks his bosom with a double chill ; Because, all hours, till the slow sun's decline, That cold divorcer will be 'twixt them still ; Wherefore he likens it to Styx' foul tide, Where life grows death upon the other side. XIX Then sadly he confronts his twofold toil Against rude waves and an unwilling mind, Wishing, alas ! with the stout rower's toil, That like a rower he might gaze behind. And watch that lonely statue he hath left. On her bleak summit, weeping and bereft ! XX Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks Pursue him still the furthest that they may ; Her marble arms that overstretch the rocks, And her pale passion'd hands that seem to pray In dumb petition to the gods above : Love prays devoutly when it prays for love ! XXI Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave. That hangs superfluous tears upon his cheek. And bans his labour like a hopeless slave, That, chain'd in hostile galley, faint and weak, Plies on despairing through the restless foam, Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-off home. XXII The drowsy mist before him chill and dank, Like a dull lethargy o'erleans the sea. When he rows on against the utter blank, Steering as if to dim eternity, — Like Love's frail ghost depsuting with the dawn ; A failing shadow in the twilight drawn. HERO AND LEANDER 127 XXIII And soon is gone, — or nothing but a faint And failing image in the eye of thought, That mocks his model with an after-paint, And stains an atom like the shape she sought ; Then with her earnest vows she hopes to fee The old and hoary majesty of sea. XXIV " King of waves, and brother of high Jove, Preserve my sumless venture there afloat ; A woman's heart, and its whole wealth of love, Are all embark'd upon that little boat ; Nay ! — but two loves, two lives, a double fate, — A perilous voyage for so dear a freight. XXV " If impious mariners be stain'd with crime. Shake not in awful rage thy hoary locks ; Lay by thy storms until another time. Lest my frail bark be dash'd against the rocks : rather smooth thy deeps, that he may fly Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky ! XXVI "Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath. Nor gore him with crook'd tusks, or wreathed horns ; Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth. Nor spine-fish wound him with their venom'd thorns ; But if he faint, and timely succour lack. Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back. XXVII "Let no false dimpling whirlpools suck him in. Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath ; Let no jagg'd corals tear his tender skin, Nor mountain billows bury him in death " ; — And with that thought forestalling her own fears, She drowned his painted image in her tears. 128 HERO AND LEANDER \ XXVIII r>y this, the climbing Sun, with rest repairM, Look'd through the gold embrasures of the sky, And ask'd the drowsy world how she had fared ;- Tlie drowsy world shone brightened in reply ; And smiling oft* her fogs, his slanting beam Spied young Leander in the middle stream. XXIX His face was pallid, but the hectic morn Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks. And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn ; So death lies ambush'd in con8iuiii)tive streaks ; But inward grief was writhing o'er its task. As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask. XXX He thought of Hero and the lost delight, Her last embracings, and the space between ; He thought of Hero and the future night, Her speechless rapture and enamour'd mien, When, lo ! before him, scarce two galleys' space. His thoughts confronted with another face ! XXXI Her aspect's like a moon, divinely fair, But makes the midnight darker that it lies on ; 'Tis so beclouded with her coal-black hair That densely skirts her luminous horizon. Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set, As marble lies advantaged upon jet. XXXII She's all too bright, too argent, and too pale, To be a woman ; — but a woman's double, Reflected on the wave so faint and frail, She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble ; Or dim creation of a morning dream, Fair as the wave-bleach'd lily of the stream. HERO AND LEANDER 129 XXXIII The very rumour strikes his seeing dead : Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense : He knows not if her lips be blue or red, Nor of her eyes can give true evidence : Like murder's witness swooning in the court, His sight falls senseless by its own report. XXXIV Anon resuming, it declares her eyes Are tint with azure, like two crystal wells That drink the blue complexion of the skies, Or pearls outpeeping from their silvery shells : Her polish'd brow, it is an ample plain, To lodge vast contemplations of the main. XXXV Her lips might corals seem, but corals near Stray through her hair like blossoms on a bower ; And o'er the weaker red still domineer, And make it pale by tribute to more power ; Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue, Touch'd by the bloom of water, tender blue. XXXVI Thus he beholds her rocking on the water, Under the glossy umbrage of her hair. Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter, Naiad, or Nereid, — or Syren fair, Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, A nightingale within a falcon's nest. XXXVII They say there be such maidens in the deep. Charming poor mariners, that all too near By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep, As drowsy men are poison 'd through the ear ; Therefore Leander's fears begin to urge. This snowy swan is come to sing his dirge. K V^ HERO AND LEANDER XXXVIII At; which he ftills into a deadly chill, Aud stnvius his eyes upon her lips apart ; Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill, Herce through his marrow, like a breath-blown dart Shot sudden from an Indian's hollow cane, Witli mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain. XXXIX Here then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd A thousand thoughts within a pulse's space ; There seein'd so brief a pause of life allowed, His mind stretcli'd universal, to embrace The whole wide world, in an extreme farewell, — A moment's musing — but an age to tell. XL For there stood Hero, widow'd at a glance, The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact, Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and wither'd countenance, A wasted ruin that no wasting lack'd ; Time's tragic consequents ere time began, A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span. XLI A moment's thinking is an hour in words, — An hour of words is little for some woes ; Too little breathing a long life affords For love to paint itself by perfect shows ; Then let his love and grief unwrongM lie dumb, Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. XLII As when the crew, hard by some jutty cape. Struck pale and panicked by the billows' roar, Lay by all timely measures of escape. And let their bark go driving on the shore : So frayM Leander, drifting to his wreck, Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck. HERO AND LEANDER 131 XLHI For he hath all forgot the swimmer's art, The rower's cunning, and the pilot's skill. Letting his arms fall down in languid part, Sway'd by the waves, and nothing by his will, Till soon he jars against that glossy skin, Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin. XLIV Lo ! how she startles at the warning shock. And straightway girds him to her radiant breast. More like his safe smooth harbour than his rock ; Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest. He cannot loose him from his grappling foe. Whether for love or hate, she lets not go. XLV His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, His ears are deafen'd with the wildering noise ; He asks the purpose of her feU design, But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice ; Under the ponderous sea his body dips. And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. XLVI Look how a man is lower'd to his grave, — A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; So he is sunk into the yawning wave, — The plunging sea fills up the watery gap ; Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. XLVII And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping, Over the verdant plain that makes his bed ; And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead ; The light in vain keeps looking for his face : — Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place. 132 HERO AND LEANDER XLVIII Yet weep and watch for him, though all in vain ! Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander ! Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again ! Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Leander ! Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape, Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape ! XLIX She says 'tis love hath bribed her to this deed, The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her. bootless theft ! unprofitable meed ! Love's treasury is sack'd, but she no richer ; The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead. And all his golden looks are turn'd to lead ! L She holds the casket, but her simple hand Hath spilFd its dearest jewel by the way ; She hath life's empty garment at command. But her own death lies covert in the prey ; As if a thief should steal a tainted vest. Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest. LI Now she compels him to her deeps below, Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair, Which jealously she shakes all round her brow. For dread of envy, though no eyes are there But seals', and all brute tenants of the deep, Which heedless through the wave their journeys keep. LII Down and still downward through the dusky green She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste In too rash ignorance, as he had been Born to the texture of that watery waste ; That which she breathed and sigh'd, the emerald wave, How could her pleasant home become his grave ! HERO AND LEANDER 133 LIII Down and still downward through the dusky green She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh To mark how life was altered in its mien, Or how the light grew torpid in his eye, Or how his pearly breath, unprison'd there, Flew up to join the universal air. LIV She could not miss the throbbings of his heart, Whilst her own pulse so wanton'd in its joy ; She could not guess he struggled to depart. And when he strove no more, the hapless boy ! She read his mortal stillness for content. Feeling no fear where only love was meant. LV Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor, And straight unyokes her arms from her fair prize ; Then on his lovely face begins to pore. As if to glut her soul ; — her hungry eyes Have grown so jealous of her arms' delight ; It seems she hath no other sense but sight. LVI But sad marvel ! most bitter strange ! What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale ? Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange Her kindly kisses ; — wherefore not exhale Some odorous message from life's ruby gates. Where she his first sweet embassy awaits ? LVII Her eyes, poor watchers, fix'd upon his looks, Are grappled with a wonder near to grief. As one, who pores on undecipher'd books, Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief ; So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought, Framing a thousand doubts that end in nought. 134 HERO AND LEANDER LVIII Too stern inscription for a page so young, The dark translation of his look was death ! But death was written in an alien tongue, And learning was not by to give it breath ; So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal, Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal. LIX Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap, Nursing Death^s marble effigy, which there \ With heavy head lies pillowed in her lap, And elbows all unhinged ; — his sleeking hair Creeps o'er her knees, and settles where his hand Leans with lax fingers crook'd against the sand ; LX And there lies spread in many an oozy trail, Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base, That shows no whiter than his brow is pale ; So soon the wintry death had bleach'd his face Into cold marble, — with blue chilly shades. Showing wherein the freezy blood pervades. LXI And o'er his steadfast cheek a furrow'd pain Hath set, and stiffened like a storm in ice. Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain Of mortal anguish ; — ^yet you might gaze twice Ere Death it seem'd, and not his cousin, Sleep, That through those creviced lids did underpeep. LXII But all that tender bloom about his eyes, Is Death's own violets, which his utmost rite It is to scatter when the red rose dies ; For blue is chilly, and akin to white : Ako he leayes some tinges on his lips, Whieh he hath kiss'd with such cold frosty nips. HERO AND LEANDER 135 LXIII " Surely," quoth she, " he sleeps, the senseless thing, Oppressed and faint with toiling in the stream ! " Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream ; Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine. Lxrv " lovely boy ! " — thus she attuned her voice, — " Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid*s home. My love-mate thou shalt be, and true hearths choice ; How have I long'd such a twin-self should come, — A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befel. My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell. LXV " Here thou shalt live, beneath this secret dome. An oceaii-bow'r, defended by the shade Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom To lap thee all about. Nay, be not fray'd. Those are but shady fishes that sail by Like antic clouds across my liquid sky ! LXVI " Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales, And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins ; They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails. And winking stars are kindled at their fins ; These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood. And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food. LXVII " Lo ! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells, My flow'rets those, that never pine for drouth ; Myself did plant them in the dappled shells, That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth, — Pearls wouldst thou have beside ? crystals to shine 1 I had such treasures once, — now they are thine. 136 HERO AND LEANDER LXVIII "Now, ]af tLine ear ogtunet this golden £anil, And thou flhalt hear the music of the sea, Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, — Is't not a rich and wondrous melody^ I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone I heard the languages of ages gone ! " I too can sing when it shall jileose thy choice, And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell, Thougli heretofore I have but set my voice To some long sighs, grief -harmoaised, to tell How desolate I fared ; — hut this sweet change Will add new notes of gladness to my range I "Or bid me speak, and I will teil thee talcs. Which I have framed out of the noise of waves ; Ere now I have communed with senseless gales. And held vain colloquies with barren caves ; Dot I could talk to tliee whole days and days, Only to word my love a thousand ways. " But if thy lips will bless nie with their speech. Then oj>e, sweet oracles ! and I'll be mute ; I was born ignorant for thee to teach. Nay all love's lore to thy dear looks imjiute ; Then ope thine eyes, fair teachcra, by wjioso light I saw to give away my heart aright ! " Lxxn It oold and deaf the sullen creature lien Over lii^r kni'iw, htkJ with oiiciulinf; day, " " buitrdins Avaric*, Iwks up his 17c*, ■ hcT w^irld irapovt'rieh'd ul'ilay; n sb limiirucl lips she hm-la U> plcid, e tbo door U closed agairiBt tier need. HERO AND LEANDER 137 LXXIII Surely he sleeps, — ^so her false wits infer ! Alas ! poor sluggard, ne'er to wake again ! Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir That might denote a vision in his brain ; Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long, Twice she hath reached the ending of her song. LXXIV Therefore *tis time she tells him to uncover Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears. Whereby her April face is shaded over. Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears ; Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets. Herself must rob those lock'd-up cabinets. LXXV With that she stoops above his brow, and bids Her busy hands forsake his tangled hair, And tenderly lift up those coffer-lids. That she may gaze upon the jewels there. Like babes that pluck an early bud apart, To know the dainty colour of its heart. LXXVI Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed. Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies. And then starts back to find the sleeper dead ; So she looks in on his uncovered eyes, And seeing all within so drear and dark. Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark. LXXVII Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess. Under the swoon of holy divination : And what had all surpass'd her simple guess, She now resolves in this dark revielation ; Death's very mystery, — oblivious death ; — Long sleep, — deep night, and an entranced breath. 138 HERO AND LEANDER LXXVni Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain, Merely obscured, and not extinguish'd, lies ; Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows again, Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs, And light comes in and kindles up the gloom, To light her spirit from its transient tomb. LXXIX Then like the sun, awaken'd at new dawn. With pale bewilder'd face she peers about, And spies blurred images obscurely drawn, Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt ; But her true grief grows shapely by degrees, — A perish'd creature lying on her knees. LXXX And now she knows how that old Murther preys. Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain : How he roams all abroad and grimly slays, Like a lean tiger in Love's own domain ; Parting fond mates, — and oft in flowery lawns Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns. LXXXI too dear knowledge ! pernicious earning ! Foul curse engraven upon beauty's page ! »'n now the sorrow of that deadly learning Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age. And on her cheek stamps verdict of death's truth By canker blights upon the bud of youth ! LXXXII For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf, So her cheeks' rose is perish'd by her sighs, And withers in the sickly breath of grief; Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes. Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt From those young lids, now plentifully wept HERO AND LEANDER 139 LXXXni Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline Drops straightway down, refusing to partake In gross admixture with the baser brine, But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque. Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears ; So one maid's trophy is another's tears ! Lxxxrv " foul Arch-Shadow, thou old cloud of Night," (Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,) " Thou blank Oblivion— blotter-out of light, Life's ruthless murderer, and dear love's bale ! Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete. Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet ? LXXXV " Lo ! what a lovely ruin thou hast made ! Alas ! alas ! thou hast no eye to see, And blindly slew'st him in misguided shade. Would I had lent my doting sense to thee ! But now I turn to thee, a willing mark. Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark ! LXXXVI " doubly cruel ! — twice misdoing spite. But I will guide thee with my helping eyes. Or — walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, — Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs. Nay, then thou should'st have spared my rose, false Death, And known Love's flow'r by smelling his sweet breath ; LXXXVII " Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing. Love should have grown from touching of his skin ; But like cold marble thou art all unfeeling. And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within, And being but a shape of freezing bone, Thy touching only turn'd my love to stone ! 140 HERO AND LEANDER LXXXVIII " And here, alas ! he lies across my knees, With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave. The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze ; Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a grave, come and dig it in my sad heart's core — That wound will bring a balsam for its sore ! LXXXIX " For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill Lies stingless, like a sense benumb'd with cold. Healing all hurts only with sleep's good-will ? So shall I slumber, and perchance behold My living love in dreams, — happy night, That lets me company his banished spright ! xc " poppy Death ! — sweet poisoner of sleep ; Where shall I seek for thee, oblivious drug. That I may steep thee in my drink, and creep Out of life's coil 1 Look, Idol ! how I hug Thy dainty image in this strict embrace. And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face ! xci " Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps, 1 do but read my sorrows by their shine ; come and quench them with thy oozy damps, And let my darkness intermix with thine ; Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see ? Now love is death,— death will be love to me ! XCII " Away, away, this vain complaining breath. It does but stir the troubles that I weep ; Let it be hush'd and quieted, sweet D^ath ; The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, — Since love is silent, I woidd fain be mute ; Death, be gracious to my dying suit ! " HERO AND LEANDER 141 XCIII Thus far she pleads, but pleading nought avails her, For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no heed ; Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fails her, She prays to heaven's fair light, as if her need Inspired her there were Gods to pity pain. Or end it, — but she lifts her arms in vain ! xciv Poor gUded Grief ! the subtle light by this With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine, And, diving downward through the green abyss. Lights up her palace with an amber shine ; There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin Reveals the ruby tide that fares within. xcv Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it ; Look how the perjured glow suborns a story On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it ; Grief will not swerve from grief, however told On coral lips, or charactered in gold ; xcvi Or else, thou maid ! safe anchored on Love's neck. Listing the hapless doom of young Leander, Thou would'st not shed a tear for that old wreck, Sitting secure where no wild surges wander ; Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace. And shows its sad reflection in thy face. xcvn Thus having travelled on, and track'd the tale, Like the due course of an old bas-relief. Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale. Brood here awhile upon that sea-maid's grief, And take a deeper imprint from the frieze Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees. 142 HERO AND LEANDER XCVIII Then whilst the melancholy Muse withal Resumes her music in a sadder tone, Meanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall, Conceive that lovely siren to live on, Ev'n as Hope whisper 'd, the Promethean light Would kindle up the dead Leander's spright. xcix *' 'Tis light," she says, " that feeds the glittering stars, And those were stars set in his heavenly brow ; But this salt cloud, this cold sea-vapour, mars Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now ; Therefore I'll lay him in the clear blue air. And see how these dull orbs will kindle there." c Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet. With dead Lcander in her fond arms' fold. She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net The sun hath twined above of liquid gold, Nor slacks till on the margin off the land She lays his body on the glowing sand. CI There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then. Some listless fishers, straying down the beach, Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake. And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache. CII First she begins to chafe him till she faints. Then falls upon his mouth with kisses many, And sometimes pauses in her own complaints To list his breathing, but there is not any, — Then looks into his eyes where no light dwells ; Light makes no pictures in such muddy wells. HERO AND LEANDER The hot Bun parches his diseover'd eyes. The hot sun beats on his discolour'd limbs, The sand is oozy whereupon he lies. Soiling his faimesB ; — then away she swims. Meaning to gather him a daintier bed, Plucking the cool fresh weeds, brown, green, and red. But, simple-witted thief, while she dives under. Another robs her of her amorous theft ; The ambush'd fishermen creep forth to plunder, And steal the unwatch'd treasure she has left ; Only his void impression dints the sands; Leander is purloin'd by stealthy hands ! cv Lo ! how she shudders off the beaded wave. Like Grief all over tears, and senseless falls, — His void imprint seems hoUow'd for her grave ; ^ Then, rising on her knees, looks round and calls On " Hero ! Hero ! " having learn'd this name Of his last breath, she calls him by the same. Then with her frantic bands she rends her bmrs, .a them forth, sad keepsakes to the wind, n plucking those she pluck'd her cares ; ' f lies deeper, and remains behind k barb'd arrow, rankling in her braui, t her very thoughts to throbs of pain. left alone, .the aand she meekly site, 'beside her wits, Miene and tragic, 'Tatery of liingic. 144 HERO AND LEANDER CVIII Or think of Ariadne's utter trance, Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor, Who left her gazing on the green expanse That swallow'd up his track, — yet this woidd mate her, Ev'n in the cloudy summit of her woe. When o'er the far sea-brim she saw him go. cix For even so she bows, and bends her gaze O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum Its waves by weary thousands all her days. Dismally doom'd ! meanwhile the billows come, And coldly dabble with her quiet feet, Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet. ex And thence into her lap have boldly sprung, Washing her weedy tresses to and fro. That round her crouching knees have darkly hung ; But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow, Like a lone beacon on a desert coast. Showing where all her hope was wreck'd and lost. CXI Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky. She knoweth not her love's abrupt resort, So like a shape of dreams he left her eye. Winking with doubt. Meanwhile, the churls' report Has throng'd the beach with many a curious face, That peeps upon her from its hiding place. CXII And here a head, and there a brow half seen. Dodges behind a rock. Here on his hands A mariner his crumpled checks doth lean Over a rugged crest. Another stands, Holding his harmful arrow at the head, Still check'd by human caution and strange dread. HERO AND LEANDER 145 CXIII One stops his ears, — another close beholder Whispers unto the next his grave surmise ; This crouches down, — and just above his shoulder, A woman's pity saddens in her eyes. And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief, With all sweet helps of sisterly relief. cxrv And down the sunny beach she paces slowly, With many doubtfiU pauses by the way ; Grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy, — Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay Her hand upon that sea-maid's shoulder white, \ Which makes her startle up in wild affright. cxv And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream ; Anon the sea fiUs up the watery cave. And seals her exit with a foamy seam, — Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach. Turning in uncouth wonder each to each. cxvi Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge, Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam ; Some point to white eruptions of the surge : — But she is vanished to her shady home, Under the deep, inscrutable, — and there Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair. CXVII Now here, the sighing winds, before unheard. Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow. Till all the surface of the deep is stirr'd, Like to the panting grief it hides below ; And heaven is cover'd with a stormy rack, Soiling the waters with its inky black. L 146 HERO AND LEANDER CXVIII The screamiDg fowl resigns her finny prey, And labours shoreward with a bending wing, Rowing against the wind her toilsome way ; Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling Their dewy frost still further on the stones. That answer to the wind with hollow groans. cxix And here and there a fisher's far-off bark Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail. Like a bright flame amid the waters dark, Watch'd with the hope and fear of maidens pale ; And anxious mothers that upturn their brows. Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows, cxx For that the horrid deep has no sure path To guide Love safe into his homely haven. And lo ! the storm grows blacker in its wrath, O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven. That bodes of death and widow's sorrowinff. Under the dusky covert of his wing. *o> CXXI And so day ended. But no vesper spark Hung forth its heavenly sign ; but sheets of flame Play'd round the savage features of the dark, Making night horrible. That night, there came A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep. And tore her hair and gazed upon the deep. CXXII And waved aloft her bright and ruddy torch, Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fanned. That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch The tender covert of her sheltering hand ; Which yet, for Love's dear sake, disdain'd retire, And, like a glorying martyr, braved the fire. HERO AND LEANDER 147 cxxni For that was love's own sign and beacon guide Across the Hellespont's wide weary space, Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide : — Look what a red it forges on her face, As if she blush'd at holding such a light, Ev'n in the unseen presence of the night ! cxxiv Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale, And colder than the rude and ruffian air That howls into her ear a horrid tale Of storm and wreck, and uttermost despair. Saying, " Leander floats amid the surge. And those are dismal waves that sing his dirge." cxxv And hark ! — a grieving voice, trembling and faint, Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea ; Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, But shriller than Leander's voice should be, Unless the wintry death had changed its tone, — Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan. cxxvi For now, upon each brief and breathless pause, Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls On " Hero ! Hero ! " — whereupon she draws Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appals Her brave and constant spirit to recoil. However the wild billows toss and toil. cxxvii "Oh ! dost thou live under the deep deep sea? I thought such love as thine could never die ; If thou hast gain'd an immortality From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I ; And this false cruel tide that used to sever Our hearts, shall be our common home for ever I 148 HERO AND LEANDER cxxvm " There we will sit and sport upon one billow, And sing our ocean ditties all the day, And lie together on the same green pillow, That curls above us with its dewy spray ; And ever in one presence live and dwell, Like two twin pearls within the selfsame shell." cxxix One moment then, upon the dizzy verge She stands ; — with face upturn'd against the sky ; A moment more, upon the foamy surge She gazes, with a calm despairing eye ; Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath. Which life endures when it confronts with death ;- cxxx Then from the giddy steep she madly springs. Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept Panting abroad, like unavailing wings. To save her from her death. — The sea-maid wept And in a crystal cave her corse enshrined ; No meaner sepulchre should Hero find ! BALLAD 149 BALLAD Spring it is cheery, Winter is dreary, Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly ; When he's forsaken. Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die ? Love will not clip him. Maids will not lip him, Maud and Marian pass him by ; Youth it is sunny. Age has no honey, — What can an old man do but die 'i June it was jolly. Oh for its folly ! A dancing leg and a laughing eye ; Youth may be silly. Wisdom is chilly, — What can an old man do but die ? Friends, they are scanty, Beggars are plenty. If he has followers, I know why ; Gold's in his clutches, (Buying him crutches !) What can an old man do but die? 150 AUTUMN BALLAD AUTUMN The Autumn skies are flush'd with gold, And fair and bright the rivers run ; These are but streams of winter cold, And painted mists that quench the sun. In secret boughs no sweet birds sing. In secret boughs no bird can shroud ; These are but leaves that take to wing, And wintry winds that pipe so loud. 'Tis not trees' shade, but cloudy glooms That on the cheerless valleys fall. The flowers are in their grassy tombs. And tears of dew are on them all. BALLAD Sigh on, sad heart, for Love's eclipse And Beauty's fairest queen, Though 'tis not for my peasant lips To soil her name between : A king might lay his sceptre down. But I am poor and nought. The brow should wear a golden crown That wears her in its thought. The diamonds glancing in her hair. Whose sudden beams surprise, Might bid such humble hopes beware The glancing of her eyes ; Yet looking once, I look'd too long. And if my love is sin. Death follows on the heels of wrong, And kills the crime within. BALLAD 151 Her dress seem'd wove of lily leaves, It was so pure and fine, — lofty wears, and lowly weaves, — But hodden-grey is mine ; And homely hose must step apart, Where garter'd princes stand, But may he wear my love at heart That wins her lily hand ! Alas ! there's far from russet frieze To silks and satin gowns. But I doubt if God made like degrees In courtly hearts and clowns. My father wronged a maiden's mirth. And brought her cheeks to blame, And all that's lordly of my birth Is my reproach and shame ! 'Tis vain to weep, — 'tis vain to sigh, 'Tis vain, this idle speech. For where her happy pearls do lie. My tears may never reach ; Yet when I'm gone, e'en lofty pride May say, of what has been, His love was nobly born and died, Though all the rest was mean ! My speech is rude, — but speech is weak Such love as mine to tell. Yet had I words, I dare not speak, So, Lady, fare thee well ; 1 will not wish thy better state Was one of low degree. But I must weep that partial fate Made such a churl of me. *■'*'- THE EXILE THE EXILE The swallow with summer Will wing o'er the seas. The wind that I sigh to Will visit thy trees. The ship that it hastens Thy jwrts will contain, But me ! — I must never See England again ! There's many that weep there, But one weeixs alone, For the tears that are falling So far from her own ; So far from thy own, love, We know not our jxain ; If death is between us, Or onlv the main. When the white cloud reclines On the verge of the sea, I fancy the white clilfs, And dream upon thee ; But the cloud spreads its wings To the blue heav'n and flies. We never shall meet, love, Except in the skies ! TO 153 TO Welcome, dear Heart, and a most kind good-morrow ; The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine : — Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine. Here are red roses, gather'd at thy cheeks, — The white were all too happy to look white : For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks ; It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright ! Dost love sweet Hyacinth ? Its scented leaf Curls manifold, — all love's delights blow double : 'Tis said this floweret is inscribed with grief, — But let that hint of a forgotten trouble. I pluck'd the Primrose at night's dewy noon ; Like Hope, it show'd its blossoms in the night ; — 'Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon ! And here are Sun-flowers, amorous of light ! These golden Buttercups are April's seal, — The Daisy-stars her constellations be : These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, Therefore I pluck no Daisies but for thee ! Here's Daisies for the mom. Primrose for gloom, Pansies and Roses for the noontide hours : — A wight once made a dial of their bloom, — So may thy life be measured out by flowers ! 154 ODE TO MELANCHOLY ODE TO MELANCHOLY Come, let us set our careful breasts, Like Philomel, against the thorn. To aggravate the inward grief. That makes her accents so forlorn ; The world has many cruel points, Whereby our bosoms have been torn, And there are dainty themes of grief, In sadness to outlast the mom, — True honour's dearth, affection's death, Neglectfid pride, and cankering scorn, With all the piteous tales that tears Have watered since the world was bom. The world ! — it is a wilderness. Where tears are hung on every tree ; For thus my gloomy phantasy Mak(is all things weep with me ! Come let us sit and watch the sky. And fancy clouds, where no clouds be ; Grief is enough to blot the eye. And make heaven black with misery. Why should birds sing such merry notes, Unless they were more blest than we ? No sorrow ever chokes their throats, Except sweet nightingale ; for she Was born to pain our hearts the more With her sad melody. Why shines the Sun, except that he Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide, And pensive shades for Melancholy, When all the earth is bright beside ? ODE TO MELANCHOLY 155 Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave, Mirth shall not win us back again, Whilst man is made of his own grave. And fairest clouds but gilded rain ! « I saw my mother in her shroud. Her cheek was cold and very pale ; And ever since IVe look'd on all As creatures doom'd to fail ! Why do buds ope except to die ? Ay, let us watch the roses wither, And think of our loves* cheeks ; And oh ! how quickly time doth fly To bring death's winter hither ! Minutes, hours, days, and weeks, Months, years, and ages, shrink to nought ; An age past is but a thought ! Ay, let us think of Him awhile That, with a coffin for a boat. Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat, And for our table choose a tomb : There's dark enough in any skull To charge with black a raven plume ; And for the saddest funeral thoughts A winding-sheet hath ample room, Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, Hath writ the common doom. How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom, And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, As if in tears it wept for them, The many human families That sleep around its stem ! How cold the dead have made these stones, With natural drops kept ever wet ! Lo ! here the best — the worst — the world Doth now remember or forget. 156 ODE TO MELANCHOLY Are in one common ruin hurFd, And love and hate are calmly met ; The loveliest eyes that ever shone, The fairest hands, and locks of jet. Is't not enough to vex our souls, And fill our eyes, that we have set Our love upon a rose's leaf, Our hearts upon a violet ? Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ; And sometimes at their swift decay Beforehand we must fret. The roses bud and bloom again ; But Love may haunt the grave of Love, And watch the mould in vain. clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine. And do not take my tears amiss ; For tears must flow to wash away A thought that shows so stem as this : Forgive, if somewhile I forget. In woe to come, the present bliss ; As frighted Proserpine let fall Her flowers at the sight of Dis, Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss. The sunniest things throw sternest shade. And there is ev'n a happiness That makes the heart afraid ! Now let us with a spell invoke The fuU-orVd moon to grieve our eyes ; Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud Lapp'd all about her, let her rise All pale and dim, as if from rest The ghost of the late-buried sun Had crept into the skies. The Moon ! she is the source of sighs. The very face to make us sad ; If but to think in other times ODE TO MELANCHOLY 157 The same calm quiet look she had, As if the world held nothing base, Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; The same fair light that shone in streams, The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad ; For so it is, with spent delights She taunts men's, brains, and makes them mad. All things are touched with Melancholy, Born of the secret souFs mistrust. To feel her fair ethereal wings Weighed down with vile degraded dust ; Even the bright extremes of joy Bring on conclusions of disgust, Like the sweet blossoms of the Maj^ Whose fragrance ends in must. O give her, then, her tribute just, Her sighs and tears, and musings holy ; There is no music in the life That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; There's not a string attuned to mirth. But has its chord in Melancholy. 158 SONNETS SONNET By ev'ry sweet tradition of trae hearts, Graven by Time, in love with his own lore ; By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts, Wherein Love died to be alive the more ; Yea, by the sad impression on the shore. Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear That coast for ever, where the billow's roar Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear ; By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall ; By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear That sigh'd around her flight ; I swear by all, The world shall find such pattern in my act, As if Love's great examples still were lack'd. SONNET TO MY WIFE The curse of Adam, the old curse of all. Though I inherit in this feverish life Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife. And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall. Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. Then what was Man's lost Paradise ! — how rife Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! Such as our own pure passion still might frame, Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs. If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs ; — But oh ! as many and such tears are ours. As only should be shed for guilt and shame 1 SONNETS 159 SONNET ON RECEIVING A GIFT Look how the golden ocean shines above Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth ; So does the bright and blessed light of Love Its own things glorify, and raise their worth. As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine. And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed, Ev'n so our tokens shine ; nay, they outshine Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed ; For where be ocean waves but half so clear. So calmly constant, and so kindly warm, As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere, Tiiat hath no dregs to be upturned by storm ? Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price, And more than gold to doting Avarice. SONNET Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak. Lives not within the humour of the eye ; — Not being but an outward phantasy. That skims the surface of a tinted cheek, — Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak. As if the rose made summer, — and so lie Amongst the perishable things that die. Unlike the love which I would give and seek : Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. Love is its own great loveliness alway. And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; Its bough owns no December and no May, But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. 160 TUE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM THE DREAM OF EUGENE AIUM 'TwAS in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And four-and-twcnty happy boys Came bounding out of school : There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool. II Away they sped with gamesome minds, And souls untouch'd by sin ; To a level mead they came, and there They drave the wickets in : Pleasantly shone the setting sun Over the town of Lynn. Ill Like sportive deer they coursed about. And shouted as they ran, — Turning to mirth all things of earth. As only boyhood can ; But the Usher sat remote from all, A melancholy man ! IV Ills hat was off, his vest apart, To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at case : So he leanM his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees ! ; / THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 161 Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside, For the peace of his soul he read that book In the golden eventide : Much study had made him very lean, And pale, and leaden-eyed. VI At last he shut the ponderous tome, With a fast and fervent grasp He strain'd the dusky covers close. And fix'd the brazen hasp : " Oh, God ! could I so close ray mind, And clasp it with a clasp ! " VII Then leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took,- Now up the mead, then down the mead. And past a shady nook, — And, lo ! he saw a little boy That pored upon a book ! VIII " My gentle lad, what is't you read — Romance or fairy fable ? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable ? " The young boy gave an upward glance, — "It is *The Death of Abel.'" IX The Usher took six hasty strides. As smit with sudden pain, — Six hasty strides beyond the place. Then slowly back again ; And down he sat beside the lad. And talk'd with him of Cain ; M 162 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM X And, long since then, of bloody men, AVhose deeds tradition saves ; Of lonely folk cut off unseen, And hid in sudden graves ; Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn. And murders done in caves ; XI And how the sprites of injured men Shriek upward from the sod, — Ay, how the ghostly hand will point To show the burial clod ; And unknown facts of guilty acts Are seen in dreams from God ! XII He told how murderers walk the earth Beneath the curse of Cain, — With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain : For ])]ood has left upon their souls Its everlasting stain ! XIII " And well," quoth he, " I know, for tnith, Their pangs must be extreme, — Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — Who spill life's sacred stream ! For why ? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder, in a dream ! XIV "One that had never done me wrong — A feeble man, and old ; I led him to a lonely field, — The moon shone clear and cold : Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold ! THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 163 XV " Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, And one with a heavy stone, One hurried gash with a hasty knife, — And then the deed was done : There was nothing lying at my foot But lifeless flesh and bone ! XVI " Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, That could not do me ill ; And yet I fear'd him all the more, For lying there so still : There was a manhood in his look. That murder could not kill ! XVII " And, lo ! the universal air Seem'd lit with ghastly flame ; — Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes Were looking down in blame : I took the dead man by his hand, And call'd upon his name ! XVIII " Oh, God ! it made me quake to see Such sense within the slain ! But when I touch'd the lifeless clay, The blood gush'd out amain ! For every clot, a burning spot Was scorching in my brain ! XIX "My head was like an ardent coal, My heart as solid ice ; My wretched, wretched soul, I knew. Was at the Devil's price : A dozen times I groan'd ; the dead Had never groan'd but twice ! 164 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM XX " And now, from forth the frowning sky, From the Heaven's topmost height, I heard a voice — the awful voice Of the blood-avenging Sprite : — * Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead And hide it from my sight ! ' XXI " I took the dreary body up, • And cast it in a stream, — A sluggish water, black as ink, The depth was so extreme : — My gentle Boy, remember this Is nothing but a dream ! xxn " Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, And vanished in the pool ; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands. And wash'd my forehead cool. And sat among the urchins young. That evening in the school xxni " Oh, Heaven ! to think of their white souls. And mine so black and grim ! I could not share in childish prayer. Nor join in Evening Hymn : Like a Devil of the Pit I seem'd, 'Mid holy Cherubim ! xxrv *' And peace went with them, one and all. And each calm pillow spread ; But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain That lighted me to bed ; And drew my midnight curtains round, With fingers bloody red ! p THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 165 XXV " All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep ; My fever'd eyes I dared not close, But stared aghast at Sleep : For Sin had rendered unto her The keys of Hell to keep ! XXVI " All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint. That rack'd me all the time ; A mighty yearning, like the first Fierce impulse unto crime ! XXVII " One stem tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave ; Stronger and stronger every pulse Did that temptation crave, — Still urging me to go and see The Dead Man in his grave ! XXVIII " Heavily I rose up, as soon As light was in the sky, And sought the black accursed pool AVith a wild misgiving eye ; And I saw the Dead in the river bed, For the faithless stream was dry. XXIX " Merrily rose the lark, and shook The dew-drop from its wing ; But I never marked its morning flight, I never heard it sing : For I was stooping once again Under the horrid thing. 166 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM XXX " With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran ; — There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began : In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the murder'd man ! XXXI " And all that day I read in school, But my tliought was other where ; As soon as the mid-day task was done. In secret I was there : And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, And still the corse was bare ! XXXII " Then down I cast me on my face, And first began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one That earth refused to keep : Or land or sea, though he should be Ten thousand fathoms deep. XXXIII " So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, Till blood for blood atones ! Ay, though he's buried in a cave, And trodden down with stones, And years have rotted off his flesh, — The world shall see his bones ! XXXIV " Oh, God ! that horrid, horrid dream Besets me now awake ! Again — again, with dizzy brain, The human life I take ; And my red right hand grows raging hot, Like Craumer's at the stake. SONNET 167 XXXV " And still no peace for the restless clay Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing pursues my soul, — It stands before me now ! " The fearful Boy looked up, and saw Huge drops upon his brow. XXXVI That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin eyelids kiss'd, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist ; And Eugene Aram walk'd between. With gyves upon his wrist. SONNET FOR THE 14th of FEBRUARY No popular respect will I omit To do thee honour on this happy day, When every loyal lover tasks his wit His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. Rather thou knowest I would still outrun All calendars with Love's, — whose date alway Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun, — For with thy favour was my life begun ; And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles, And not by summers, for I thrive on none But those thy cheerful countenance compiles : Oh ! if it be to choose and call thee mine. Love, thou art every day my Valentine. 168 THE DEATH-BED THE DEATH-BED We watched her breathing through the night, Her breatliing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. So silently we seem'd to speak. So slowly moved about, As we had lent her half our powers To eke her living out. Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied — We thought her dying when she slept. And sleeping when she died. For when the morn came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her ([uiet eyelids closed — she had Another morn than ours. ANTICIPATION 169 ANTICIPATION "Coming events cast their shadow before." I HAD a vision in the summer light — Sorrow was in it, and my inward sight Ached with sad images. The touch of tears Gushed down my cheeks : — the figured woes of years Casting their shadows across sunny hours. Oh, there was nothing sorrowful in flowers Wooing the glances of an April sun, Or apple blossoms opening one by one Their crimson bosoms — or the twittered words And warbled sentences of merry birds ; — Or the small glitter and the humming wings Of golden flies and many coloured things — Oh, these were nothing sad — nor to see Her, Sitting beneath the comfortable stir Of early leaves — castiug the playful grace Of moving shadows in so fair a face — Nor in her brow serene — nor in the love Of her mild eyes drinking the light above With a long thirst — nor in her gentle smile — Nor in her hand that shone blood-red the while She raised it in the sun. All these were dear To heart and eye — but an invisible fear Shook in the trees and chilled upon the air, And if one spot was laughing brightest — there My soul most sank and darkened in despair ! — As if the shadows of a curtained room Haunted me in the sun — as if the bloom Of early flowerets had no sweets for me, 170 ANTICIPATION Nor apple blossoms any blush to see — As if the hour had brought too bright a day — And little birds were all too gay ! — too gay ! — As if the beauty of that Lovely One Were all a fable. — Full before the sun Stood Death and cast a shadow long before, Like a dark pall enshrouding her all o'er, Till eyes, and lips, and smiles, were all no more ! TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTniSR 171 TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER Love thy mother, little one ! Kiss and clasp her neck again, — Hereafter she may have a son Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain. Love thy mother, little one ! Gaze upon her living eyes, And mirror back her love for thee,— Hereafter thou mayst shudder sighs To meet them when they cannot see. Gaze upon her living eyes ! Press her lips the while they glow With love that they have often told, — Hereafter thou mayst press in woe. And kiss them till thine own are cold. Press her lips the while they glow ! Oh, revere her raven hair ! Although it be not silver-grey ; Too early Death, led on by Care, May snatch save one dear lock away. Oh, revere her raven hair ! Pray for her at eve and morn. That Heaven may long the stroke defer, — For thou mayst live the hour forlorn When thou wilt ask to die with her. Pray for her at eve and mom ! 172 aTANZAS— SONNET TO OCEAN y STANZAS (from tylj^ey hall) Still glides the gentle streamlet od, With shifting current new and strange ; The water that was here is gone, But those green shadows do not change. Serene, or ruffled by the storm. On present waves as on the past, The mirrored grave retains its form. The self-same trees their semblance cast. The hue each fleeting globule wears. That drop bequeaths it to the next, One picture still the surface bears, To illustrate the murmured text. So, love, however time may flow, Fresh hours pursuing those that flee One constant image still shall show My tide of life is true to thee ! SONNET TO OCEAN SuALL I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love. That once, in rage, with the wild winds at strife, Thou darest menace my unit of a life, Sending my clay below, my soul above. Whilst roar'd thy waves, like lions when they rove By night, and bound ujwu their prey by stealth 1 Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ?— Didst thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove ? Nay, dost thou not against my own dear shore Full break, last link between my land and me ?— My absent friends talk in thy ver}- roar, In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see, And, if I must not see my England more, Next to her soil, my grave be found In thee ! TO 173 TO COMPOSED AT EOTTERDAM I GAZE Upon a city, — A city new and strange, — Down many a watery vista My fancy takes a range ; From side to side I saunter. And wonder where I am ; And can you be in England, And / at Kotterdam ! II Before me lie dark waters In broad canals and deep, Whereon the silver moonbeams Sleep, restless in their sleep ; A sort of vulgar Venice Reminds me where I am ; Yes, yes, you are in England, And I'm at Rotterdam. Ill Tall houses with quaint gables. Where frequent windows shine, And quays that lead to bridges, And trees in formal line, And masts of spicy vessels From western Surinam, All tell me you're in England, But I'm in Rotterdam. 174 TO IV Those sailors, how outlandish The face and form of each ! They deal in foreign gestures, And use a foreign speech ; A tongue not learned near Isis, Or studied by the Cam, Declares that you're in England, And I'm at Eotterdam. V And now across a market My doubtful way I trace. Where stands a solemn statue, The Genius of the place ; And to the great Erasmus I offer my salaam ; Who tells me you're in England, But I'm at Eotterdam. VI The coffee-room is open — I mingle in its crowd, — Tlie dominos are noisy — The hookahs raise a cloud ; Tlie flavour, none of Fcaron's, That mingles with my dram. Reminds me you're in England, And I'm at Rotterdam. VII Then here it goes, a bumper — The toast it shall be mine, In Schiedam, or in sherry, Tokay, or hock of Rhine ; It well deserves the brightest. Where sunbeam ever swam — " The Girl I love in England " I drink at Rotterdam I LINES 175 LINES ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE SAME CHAMBER And has the earth lost its so spacious round, The sky its blue circumference above, That in this little chamber there is found Both earth and heaven — my universe of love ! All that my God can give me, or remove. Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death. Sweet that in this small compass I behove To live their living and to breathe their breath ! Almost I wish that, with one common sigh, We might resign all mundane care and strife, And seek together that transcendent sky, Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband, Wife, Together pant in everlasting life ! 176 STANZAS STANZAS Is there a bitter pang for love removed, God ! The dead love doth not cost more tears Than the alive, the loving, the beloved — Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears I Would I were laid Under the shade Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years, — That love might die vrith sorrovr: — I am sorrow ; And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow Only new anguish from the old caress; Oh, this world's grief Hath no relief In being wrung from a great happiness. Would I had never filled thine eyes with love, For love is only tears : would I had never Breathed such a curse-like blessing as we prove ; Now, if "Farewell " could bless thee, I would sever ! Would I were laid Under the shade Of the cold tomb, and the long grass for ever ! ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 177 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. TO THE EDITOR OP THE ATHENjEUM My dear Sir — The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of some strictures on my writings by the gentleman to whom it is addressed. I have not seen his book ; but I know by hearsay that some of my verses are characterised as **pro- faneness and ribaldry" — citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from whose jaw a cabbage sprout " Protruded, as the dove so staunch For peace supports an olive branch." If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared mo for any misapplication of typesy I should have been surprised by this misapprehension of one of the commonest emblems. In some cases the dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit ; but the same bird is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, has figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in which it was used by me is plain from the context ; at least, it would be plain to any one but a fisher for faults, predisposed to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all. But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their in- tolerance ; and the spirit is certainly strong enough, in Mr. W.'s works, to set up a creature as sacred, in sheer opposition to the Mussulman, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It would only be going the whole sow. — I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, Thos. Hood. N i78 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. " Close, close your eyes with holy dread, And weave a circle round him thrice, For he on honey-dew hath fed * And drunk the milk of Paradise." — Colebidge. " It's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body he,"— Old Ballad. A WANDERER, WilsoD, from my native land, Remote, Rae, from godliness and thee, Where rolls between us the eternal sea. Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand, — Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall ; Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call ; Across the wavy waste between us stretched, A friendly missive warns me of a stricture, Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch*d, And though I have not seen the shadow sketched. Thus I remark prophetic on the picture. I guess the features : — in a line to paint Their moral ugliness, I^m not a saint. Not one of those self-constituted saints, Quacks — not physicians — in the cure of souls, Censors who sniff out mortal taints. And call the devil over his own coals — Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God, Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibb'd ; Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod, Commending sinners, not to ice thick-ribb'd, But endless flames, to scorch them up like flax — Yet sure of heav*n themselves, aa if they'd cribb'd Th' impression of St. Peter's keys in wax ! Of such a character no single trace Exists, I know, in my fictitious face ; There wants a certain cast about the eye ; A certain lifting of the nose's tip ; A certain curling of the nether lip, In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky ; ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 179 lu brief it is an aspect deleterious, A face decidedly not serious, A face profane, that would not do at all To make a face at Exeter Hall, — That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray, And laud each other face to face. Till ev'ry farthing-candle ray Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace. Well ! — be the graceless lineaments confest ! I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth ; And dote upon a jest " Within the limits of becoming mirth " ; — No solemn sanctimonious face I pull, Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious — Nor study in my sanctum supercilious To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull. I pray for grace — repent each sinful act — Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible ; And love my neighbour far too well, in fact. To call and twit him with a godly tract That's turn'd by application to a libel. My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, All creeds I view with toleration thorough, And have a horror of regarding heaven As anybody's rotten borough. What else % no part I take in party fray, With tropes from Billingsgate's slang-whanging tartars, I fear no Pope — and let great Ernest play At Fox and Goose with Fox's Martyrs ! I own I laugh at over-righteous men, I own I shake my sides at ranters. And treat sham-Abr'am saints with wicked banters, I even own, that there are times — but then It's when I've got my wine — I say d canters ! I've no ambition to enact the spy On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry — .« 180 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. Tis said that people ought to guard their noses, Who thrust them into matters none of theirs ; And tho' no delicacy discomposes Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs Amongst the privatest of men's affairs. I do not hash the Gospel in my books, And thus upon the public mind intrude it, As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks. No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it. On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk ; Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk, — For man may pious texts repeat. And yet religion have no inward seat ; Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth, A man has got his belly full of meat Because he talks with victuals in his mouth ! Mere verbiage, — it is not worth a carrot ! Why, Socrates — or Plato — where's the odds 1 — Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods, And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot ! A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is Not a whit better than a Mantis, — An insect, of what clime I can't determine, That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence, By simple savages — thro' sheer pretence — Is reckon'd quite a saint amongst the vermin. But where'a the reverence, or where the notis, To ride on one's religion thro' the lobby. Whether a stalking-horse or hobby. To show its pious paces to " the House " 1 I honestly confess that I would hinder The Scottish member's legislative rigs. ODE TO BAE WILSON, ESQ. 181 That spiritual Pinder, Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs, That must be lashed by law, wherever found. And driv'n to church, as to the parish pound. I do confess, without reserve or wheedle, I view that grovelling idea as one Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, A charity-boy, who longs to be a beadle. On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd How much a man can differ from his neighbour : One wishes worship freely giv'n to God, Another wants to make it statute-labour — The broad distinction in a line to draw. As means to lead us to the skies above, You say — Sir Andrew and his love of law. And I — the Saviour with his law of love. Spontaneously to God should tend the soul. Like the magnetic needle to the Pole ; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth. Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's College, Should nail the conscious needle to the north ? I do confess that I abhor and shrink From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly, That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blink The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly — My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy, And will not, dare not, fancy in accord The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord Of this world's aristocracy. It will not own a notion so unholy, As thinking that the rich by easy trips May go to heav'n, whereas the poor and lowly Must work their passage, as they do in ships. 182 ODE TO BAE WILSON, ESQ. One place there is — beneath the burial sod, Where all mankind are equalised by death ; Another place there is — the Fane of God, Where all are equal, who draw living breath ; — Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul, Playing the Judas with a temporal dole — He who can come beneath that awful cope, In the dread presence of a Maker just, Who metes to ev'ry pinch of human dust One even measure of immortal hope — He who can stand within that holy door, With soul unbow'd by that pure spirit-level. And frame unequal laws for rich and poor, — Might sit for Hell and represent the Devil ! Such are the solemn sentiments, Rae, In your last Journey- Work, perchance you ravage, Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say I'm but a heedless, creedless, godless savage ; A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots, — A Scoffer, always on the grin, And sadly given to the mortal sin Of liking Mawworms less than merry maggots ! The humble records of my life to search, I have not herded with mere pagan beasts ; But sometimes I have " sat at good men's feasts," And I have been "where bells have knoll'd to church." Dear bells ! how sweet the sounds of village bells When on the undulating air they swim ! Now loud as welcomes ! faint, now, as farewells ! And trembling all about the breezy dells As fluttered by the wings of Cherubim. Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn ; And lost to sight th' ecstatic lark above Sings, like a soul beatified, of love, — AVith, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon ; — Pagans, Heathens, Infidels and Doubters ! ODE TO RAE WILSOK, ESQ. 183 If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion, Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters ? A man may cry " Church ! Church ! " at eVry word, With no more piety than other people — A daw's not reckoned a religious bird Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple. The Temple is a good, a holy place, But quacking only gives it an ill savour ; While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, And bring religion's self into disfavour ! Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger, Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger. Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak. Against the wicked remnant of the week, A saving bet against his sinful bias — " Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, " I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf. But who on earth can say I am not pious 1 " In proof how over-righteousness re-acts. Accept an anecdote well based on facts. One Sunday morning — (at the day don't fret) — In riding with a friend to Bonder's End Outside the stage, we happen'd to commend A certain mansion that we saw To Let. " Ay," cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple, " You're right ! no house along the road comes nigh it ! 'Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel And master wanted once to buy it, — But t'other driv the bargain much too hard — He ax'd sure-^y a sum purdigious ! But being so particular religious. Why, that, you see, put master on his guard ! " 11 n ie V :n tl Dne ( He w With And T: Might Such a In yoiu Seemini I'm but A very ' Ar And sad Of likiuL The huni I have n- But somi* And I ha- Dear belV AVhen on ;Now loud And treml As flutter'* Ikleanwhih^ And lost t« Sings, like . With, now : Pagans, I ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 185 Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak ! Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, Scotland, renown'd for sanctity of old, Far distant Catholics to rate and scold For — doing as the Romans do at Rome ? With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers. About the graceless images to flit, And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops ? — People who hold such absolute opinions Should stay at home, in Protestant dominions, Not travel like male Mrs. TroUopes. Gifted with noble tendency to climb, Yet weak at the same time, Faith is a kind of parasitic plant, That grasps the nearest stem with tendril-rings ; And as the climate and the soil may grant. So is the sort of tree to which it clings. Consider then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, You aim your club at any creed on earth. That, by the simple accident of birth, Yo2i might have been High Priest to Mumbo Jumbo. For me — thro' heathen ignorance perchance. Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel None of that griffin ish excess of zeal. Some travellers would blaze with here in France. Dolls I can see in Virgin-like array^ Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker Like crazy Quixote at the puppet's play. If their " offence be rank," should mine be rancour ? 184 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. Church is "a little heav'n below, I have been there and still would go," — Yet I am none of those, who think it odd A man can pray unbidden from the cassock, And, passing by the customary hassock, Kneel down remote upon the simple sod, And sue in fonnti pauperis to God. As for the rest, — intolerant to none, Whatever shape the jnous rite may bear, Ev'n the poor Pagan's homage to the Sun I would not harshly scorn, lest even there I spurn'd some elements of Christian pray'r — An aim, tho' erring, at a " world ayont " — Acknowledgment of good — of man's futility, A sease of need, and weakness, and indeed That very thing so many Christians want — Humility. Such, unto Papists, Jews or turban'd Turks, Such is my spirit — (I don't mean my wraith 1) Such, may it please you, is my humble faith ; I know, full well, you do not like my works ! I have not sought, 'tis true, the Holy Land, As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg's mother, The Bible in one hand. And my own commonplace-book in the other- But you have been to Palestine — alas ! Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, Resemble copper wire, or brass. Which gets the narrower by going farther ! Worthless are all such Pilgrimages — very ! If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive The human heats and rancour to revive That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on. To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, ODE TO R AE WILSON, ESQ. 1 85 Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoko. At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak ! Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, Scotland, renown'd for sanctity of old. Far distant Catholics to rate and scold For — doing as the Romans do at Rome 1 With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers. About the graceless images to flit. And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops?-- People who hold such absolute opinions Should stay at home, in Protestant dominions, Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopcs. Gifted with noble tendency to climb. Yet weak at the same time. Faith is a kind of parasitic plant, That grasps the nearest stem with tendril-rings ; And as the climate and the soil may grant, So is the sort of tree to which it clings. Consider then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, You aim your club at any creed on earth. That, by the simple accident of birth, You might have been High Priest to Mumbo Jumbo. For me — thro' heathen ignorance perchance. Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel None of that griffin ish excess of zeal, Some travellers would blaze with here in France. Dolls I can see in Virgin-like array, Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker Like crazy Quixote at the puppet's play, If their " offence be rank," should mine be rancour ? 186 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. Mild light, and by degrees, should be the plan To cure the dark and erring mind ; But who would rush at a benighted man, And give him two black eyes for being blind ? Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop Around a canker'd stem should twine. What Kentish boor would tear away the prop So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine 1 The images, 'tis true, are strangely dress'd. With gauds and toys extremely out of season ; The carving nothing of the very best. The whole repugnant to the eye of reason. Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason — Yet ne*er overlook in bigotry of sect One truly Catholic, one common form. At which uncheck'd All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm. Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss. One bright and balmy morning, as I went From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, If hard by the wayside I found a cross. That made me breathe a pray'r upon the spot — While Nature of herself, as if to trace The emblem's use, had trail'd around its base The blue significant Forget-me-not ] Methought, the claims of Charity to urge More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope, The pious choice had pitch'd upon the verge Of a delicious slope, Giving the eye much variegated scope ; — " Look round," it whisper'd, " on that prospect rare, Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue ; Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair, But '* — (how the simple legend pierced mc thro' !) " Priez pour les Malheureux." ODE TO EAE WILSON, ESQ. 187 With sweet kind natures, as in honey'd cells, Keligion lives, and feels herself at home ; But only on a formal visit dwells Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb. Shun pride, Kae ! — whatever sort beside You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride ! A pride there is of rank — a pride of birth, A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, A London pride — in short, there be on earth A host of prides, some better and some worse ; But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint. The proudest swells a self-elected Saint. To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard. Fancy a peacock in a poultry yard. Behold him in conceited circles sail, Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff. In all his pomp of pageantry, as if He felt '* the eyes of Europe " on his tail ! As for the humble breed retain'd by man, He scorns the whole domestic clan — He bows, he bridles. He wheels, he sidles. At last, with stately dodgings, in a comer He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan ! " Look here," he cries (to give him words), " Thou feather'd clay — thou scum of birds ! " Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes,— " Look here, thou vile predestined sinner, Doom'd to be roasted for a dinner, Behold these lovely variegated dyes ! These are the rainbow colours of the skies. That Heav'n has shed upon me con amore — A Bird of Paradise ? — a pretty story ! / am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! Look at my crown of glory ! 188 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. Thou dingy, dirty, drabbled, draggled jill ! " And oflf goes Partlet, wriggling from a kick. With bleeding scalp laid open by his bill ! That little simile exactly paints How sinners are despised by saints. By saints ! — the Hypocrites that ope heav'n's door Obsequious to the sinful man of riches — But put the wicked, naked, barelegg'd poor In parish stocks instead of breeches. The Saints ! — the Bigots that in public spout, Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian, And go like walking " Lucifers " about Mere living bundles of combustion. The Saints ! — the aping Fanatics that talk All cant and rant, find rhapsodies liigh-flown — That bid you baulk A Sunday walk. And shun God's work as you should shun your own. The Saints ! — the Formalists, the extra pious. Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, By trundling with a mere mechanic bias. To church, just like a lignum-vitse bowl ! The Saints ! — the Pharisees, whose beadle stands Beside a stem coercive kirk. A piece of human mason- work. Calling all sermons contrabands. In that great Temple that's not made with hands ! Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom The gracious prodigality of nature, The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom. The l)ountcou8 providence in ev'ry feature. Recall the good Creator to his creature, ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 189 Making all earth a fane, all heav'n its dome ! To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells King Sabbath knells ; The jubilate of the soaring lark Is chant of clerk ; For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ; The sod's a cushion for his pious want ; And, consecrated by the heav'n within it. The sky-blue pool, a font. Each cloud-capp'd mountain is a holy altar ; An organ breathes in every grove ; And the full heart's a Psalter, Kich in deep hymns of gratitude and love ! Sufficiently by stern necessitarians Poor Nature, with her face begrimed by dust, Is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked ; but must Keligion have its own Utilitarians, Labell'd with evangelical phylacteries. To make the road to heav'n a railway trust, And churches — that's the naked fact — mere factories 1 Oh ! simply open wide the Temple door. And let the solemn, swelling, organ greet. With Voluntaries meet, The willing advent of the rich and poor ! And while to God the loud Hosannas soar. With rich vibrations from the vocal throng — From quiet shades that to the woods belong. And brooks with music of their own. Voices may come to swell the choral song With notes of praise they learn'd in musings lone. How strange it is while on all vital questions. That occupy the House and public mind. We always meet with some humane suggestions Of gentle measures of a healing kind, Instead of harsh severity and vigour. IdO ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. The Saint alone his preference retains For bills of penalties and pains, And marks his narrow code with legal rigour ! Why shun, as worthless of afl&liation, What men of all political persuasion Estol — and even use upon occasion — That Christian principle. Conciliation 1 But possibly the men who make such fuss With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm, Attach some other meaning to the term, As thus: One market morning, in my usual rambles. Passing along Whitechapel's ancient shambles, Where meat was hung in many a joint and quarter, I had to halt awhile, like other folks. To let a killing butcher coax A score of lambs and fatted sheep to slaughter. A sturdy man he look'd to fell an ox. Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak Of well-grcascd hair down either cheek. As if he dee-dash-dee'd some other flocks Beside those woolly-headed stubborn blocks That stood before him, in vexatious liuddle — Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers grouped, While, now and then, a thirsty creature stoop'd And meekly snufiTd, but did not taste the puddle. Fierce bark'd the dog, and many a blow was dealt, That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt, Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it, — And shunn'd the tainted door as if they smelt Onions, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it. At last there came a pause of brutal force, The cur was silent, for his jaws were full Of tangled locks of tarry wool, The man had whoop'd and holloed till dead hoarse. The time was ripe for mild expostulation, ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 191 Aud thus it stammer'd from a stander-by — " Zounds ! — my good fellow, — it quite makes me — why, It reaUy — my dear fellow^-do just try Conciliation ! " Stringing his nerves like flint, The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint, — At least he seized upon the foremost wether, — And hugg'd and lugg'd and tugg'd him neck and crop Just nolens volens thro' the open shop — If tails come off he didn't care a feather, — Then walking to the door aud smiling grim, He rubb'd his forehead and his sleeve together — " There ! — I have coTiciliated him ! " Again — good-humouredly to end our quarrel — (Good humour should prevail !) I'll fit you with a tale, Whereto is tied a moral. Once on a time a certain English lass Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline. Cough, hectic flushes, ev'ry evil sign, That, as their wont is at such desperate pass, The Doctors gave her over — to an ass. Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk, Each morn the patient quaflPd a frothy bowl Of asinine new milk. Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal Which got proportionably spare and skinny — Meanwhile the neighbours cried " Poor Mary Ann ! She can't get over it ! she never can ! " When lo ! to prove each prophet was a ninny The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny. To aggravate the case, There were but two grown donkeys in the place ; 192 ODE TO EAB WILSON, ESQ. And most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter, The other long-ear'd creature was a male, Who never in his life had given a pail Of milk, or even chalk and water. No matter : at the usual hour of eight Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate, With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back, — " Your sarvant, Miss, — a werry spring-like day, — Bad time for basses tho' ! good lack ! good lack ! Jenny be dead, Miss, — but I'ze brought ye Jack, He djoesu't give no milk — but he can bray." So runs the story, And, in vain self-glory, Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness — But what the better are their pious saws To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws, Without the milk of human kindness ? TO MY DAUGHTER 193 TO MY DAUGHTER ON HER BIRTHDAY Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago, While yet the morning sun was low, And rosy with the Eastern glow The landscape smiled — Whilst lowed the newly-waken'd herds- Sweet as the early song of birds, I heard those first, delightful words, " Thou hast a Child ! " Along with that uprising dew Tears glistened in my eyes, though few, To hail a dawning quite as new To me, as Time : It was not sorrow — not annoy — But like a happy maid, though coy, With grief-like welcome even Joy Forestalls its prime. So mayst thou live, dear ! many years. In all the bliss that life endears, Not without smiles, nor yet from tears Too strictly kept : When first thy infant littleness I folded in my fond caress. The greatest proof of happiness Was this — I wept. 194 MISS KILMANSEGG MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG A GOLDEN LEGEND ••What is here? (joM ! yellow, glittering, precious gold ? " Tutum of Alliens. To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree To the very root of the family tree Were a task as rash as ridiculous : Through antediluvian mists as thick As Loudon fog such a line to pick Were enough, in truth, to puzzle old Nick,- Not to name Sir Harris Nicolas. II It wouldn't rec^uire much verbal strain To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain ; But, waiving all such digressions, Suffice it, according to family lore, A l*atriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore, Who was famed for his great possessions. Ill Tradition said he feather'd his nest Through an Agricultural Interest In the Golden Age of Fanning ; When golden eggs were laid by the geese, And Colchian sheep wore a golden fleece, And golden pippins — the sterling kind Of Ilespcnis — now so hanl to find — Mado Horticulture quite charming ! '^^ AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 1 95 A Lord of Land, on his own estate, He lived at a very lively rate. But his income would bear carousing ; Such acres he had of pasture and heath, With herbage so rich from the ore beneath, The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth Were turn'd into gold by browsing. He gave, without any extra thrift, A flock of sheep for a birthday gift To each son of his loins, or daughter : And his debts — if debts he had — at will He liquidated by giving each bill A dip in Pactolian water. VI Twas said that even his pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the Golden Bulls of Pope Gregory. VII The high-bred horses within his stud, Like human creatures of birth and blood, Had their Golden Cups and flagons : And as for the common husbandry nags. Their noses were tied in money-bags, When they stopp'd with the carts and waggons. VIII Moreover, he had a Golden Ass, Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass. That was worth his own weight in money — 196 MISS KILMANSEGG And a golden hive, on a Golden Bank, Where golden bees, by alchemical prank, Gather'd gold instead of honey. IX Gold ! and gold ! and gold without end ! He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend. Gold to give, and gold to lend, And reversions of gold in futuro. In wealth the family revell'd and roll'd. Himself and wife and sons so bold ; — And his daughters sang to their harps of gold "ObeUaetader oro!" Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg Ban, In golden text on a vellum skin, Though certain people would wink and grin, And declare the whole story a parable — That the Ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes, Who held a long lease, in prosperous times. Of acres, pasture and arable. XI That as money makes money, his golden bees Were the Five per Cents, or which you please. When his cash was more than plenty — That the golden cups were racing aflfairs ; And his daughters, who sang Italian airs. Had their golden harps of Clementi. XII That the Golden Ass, or Golden Bull, Was English John, with his pockets full. Then at war by land and water : While beef, and mutton, and other meat. Were almost as dear as money to eat, And Farmers reaped Golden Harvests of wheat At the Lord knows what per quarter ! AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 197 I XIII What different dooms our birthdays bring ! For instance, one little ^jaaj^i^^ thing Survives to wear many a wrinkle ; While Death forbids another to wake, And a son that it took nine moons to make Expires without even a twinkle ! XIV Into this world we come like ships, Launched from the docks, and stocks, and slips, For fortune fair or fatal ; And one little craft is cast away In its very first trip in Babbicome Bay, While another rides safe at Port Natal. XV What different lots our stars accord ! This babe to be hail'd and woo'd as a Lord ! And that to be shunn'd like a leper ! One, to the world's wine, honey, and corn. Another, like Colchester native, born To its vinegar, only, and pepper. XVI One is litter'd under a roof Neither wind nor water proof — That's the prose of Love in a Cottage — A puny, naked, shivering wretch. The whole of whose birthright would not fetch, Though Robins himself drew up the sketch, The bid of " a mess of pottage." 198 MISS KILMANSEGG XVII Bom of Fortunatus's kin, Another comes tenderly ushered in To a prospect all bright and bumish'd ; No tenant he for life's back slums — He comes to the world, as a gentleman comes To a lodging ready furnished. XVIII And the other sex — the tender — the fair — What wide reverses of fate are there ! Whilst Margaret, charm'd by the Bulbul rare, In a garden of Gul reposes — Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street Till — think of that, who find life so sweet ! — She hates the smell of roses ! XIX Not so with the infant Kilmansegg ! She was not born to steal or beg, Or gather cresses in ditches ; To plait the straw, or bind the shoe. Or sit all day to hem and sew, As females must — and not a few — To fill their insides with stitches ! XX She was not doom'd, for bread to eat. To be put to her hands as well as her feet — To carry home linen from mangles— Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limb'd. To dance on a rope in a jacket trimm'd With as many blows as spangles. XXI She was one of those who by Fortune's boon Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 199 In her mouth, not a wooden ladle : To speak according to poet's wont, Plutus as sponsor stood at her font. And Midas rock'd the cradle. XXII At her first ddbut she found her head On a pillow of down, in a downy bed. With a damask canopy over. For although, by the vulgar popular saw, All mothers are said to be " in the straw," Some children are born in clover. XXIII Her very first draught of vital air. It was not the common chameleon fare Of plebeian lungs and noses, — No — her earliest sniflf Of this world was a whiff Of the genuine Otto of Koses ! XXIV When she saw the light, it was no mere ray Of that light so common — so everyday — That the sun. each morning launches — But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes. From a thing — a gooseberry bush for size — With a golden stem and branches. XXV She was bom exactly at half-past two. As witnessed a timepiece in ormolu That stood on a marble table — Showing at once the time of day, And a team of Gildings running away As fast as they were able. With a golden God, with a golden Star, And a golden Spear, in a golden Car, According to Grecian fable. 200 MISS KILMANSEOG XXVI Like otlier baljcs, at licr birth she cried ; Which made a sensation far and wis ! — it's awful work ! It's fluster than Turpiu's ride to York, On Boss that notable clipper \ Slio lias circled the Ring ! — she crosses the Park ! Ma/op[vv, although he was stripp'd so stark, M!izep}>a couldn't outstrip her ! XCIII The fields seem nmning away with the folks ! The Elms are having a race for the l>aks At a |vice that all Jockeys disivurages ! All, all is racing ! tlie Serjientine Sivms rushing jKist like the '* arrowy Rhine," The houst^ have got on a railway line. And art* otf like the first-class carriacres ! AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 217 XCIV She'll lose her life ! she is losing her breath 1 A cruel chase, she is chasing Death, As female shriekings forewarn her : And now — as gratis as blood of Guelph — She clears that gate, which has cleared itself Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! xcv Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! For her head, her brains, her body, and legs, Her life's not worth a copper ! Willy-nilly, In Piccadilly, A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, A hundred voices cry, " Stop her ! " And one old gentleman stares and stands, Shakes his head and lifts his hands. And says, " How very improper ! " xcvi On and on ! — ^what a perilous run ! The iron rails seem all mingling in one, To shut out the Green Park scenery ! And now the Cellar its dangers reveals, She shudders — she shrieks — she's doom'd, she feels. To be torn by powers of horses and wheels, Like a spinner by steam machinery ! XCVII Sick with horror she shuts her eyes. But the very stones seem uttering cries. As they did to that Persian daughter. When she climb'd up the steep vociferous hill, Her little silver flagon to fill With the magical Golden Water ! 218 MISS KILMANSEGG XCVIII ** Batter her ! shatter her ! Throw and scatter her ! '"' Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer ! " Dash at the heavy Dover ! Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! Smash her! crash her!" (the stones didn't flatter her!) " Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her ! Roll on her over and over ! " xcix For so she gather'd the awful sense Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense, As the wild horse overran it, — His four heels making the clatter of six, . Like a Devil's tattoo, play'd with iron sticks On a kettle-drum of granite ! c On ! still on ! she's dazzled with hints Of oranges, ribbons, and colour'd prints, A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints. And human faces all flashing, Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints, That the desperate hoof keeps dashing ! CI On and on ! still frightfully fast 1 Dover Street, Bond Street, all are past I But — yes — no — yes ! — they're down at last ! The Furies and Fates have found them ! Down they go with sparkle and crash, Like a Bark that's struck by the lightning flash — There's a shriek — and a sob — And the dense dark mob Like a billow closes around them ! AND HEK PEECIOUS LEG CII " SliQ breathes ! " "Sbe don't!" "She'll recover!" " She won't ! " ihe's Btirring ! Bhe's living, by Ifemeeis ! ' Btill gold ! on counter and shelf ! :n dishes as plenty as delf ; "ilmaosegg's coming again to herself opulent Goldsmith's prentisea ! cni finn gold ! — both yellow and red, and molten— polish'd, and dead— 'le gold with profusion spread forms of its manufacture ! mat avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg, (the femoral kme of her dexter leg IB luut witli a compound fracture 1 ij^\^ ^^B? soothe Adversity's smart; i jf /^JI^W) to bind up a broken heart ; p.ii'i^ tBt? it "1 ^"'7 other part ■ Mfj. °f^ ^ ccrt.ain n, disappointment, As if ^'*''* filiould rub the dish and plate, Takei ' '^^ '^^ •' Staffordshire crate — bi the I 'i"l"' "i'-i Golden Service of State— With.il J^iiiL'lt'too's "Golden Ointment." 220 MISS KILMANSEGG cv "As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," Is an adage often recall'd to mind. Referring to juvenile bias : And never so well is the verity seen, As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean, While Life's tempests and hurricanes try m cvi Even thus with Miss K. and her broken liml By a very, very remarkable whim, She show'd her early tuition : Wliile the buds of character came into blow With h certain tinge that served to show Tlie nursery culture long ago. As the graft is known by fruition ! CVII For the King's Physician, who nursed the His verdict gave with an awful face. And three otliers concurred to e^^^ it ; That the Patient to give old Death the 8b\., Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip, ! Must send her Leg as a Legate. ^< CVIII The limb was doomed — it couldn't be saval And like other people the patient behave(|[ Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved, * Which makes some persons so falter, " . They rather would part, without a groan, With the flesh of their flesh, and bone o^ *hpi They obtuin'd at St. George's altar. \ :i AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 221 CIX But when it came to fitting the stump With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump She spoke, in the spirit olden ; \ She couldn't^she shouldn't — she wouldn't have wood ! \ Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood, I And she swore an oath, or something as good, ' The proxy limb should be golden ! ex A wooden leg ! what, a sort of peg, For your common Jockeys and Jennies ! No, no, her mother might worry and plagu Weep, go down on her knees, and beg. But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg ! 'She could — she would have a Golden Leg, If it cost ten thousand guineas ! CXI Wood indeed, in Forest or Park, With its sylvan honours and feudal bark. Is an aristocratic article : But split and sawn, and hack'd about town. Serving all needs of pauper or clown. Trod on ! stagger'd on ! Wood cut down Is vulgar — fibre and particle ! CXII And Cork ! — when the noble Cork Tree shades A lovely group of Castilian maids, 'Tis a thing for a song or sonnet ! — But cork, as it stops the bottle of gin, Or bungs the beer — the small beer — in. It pierced her heart like a corking-pin. To think of standing upon it ! 222 MISS KILMVNSEGG CXIII A Leg of Gold — solid gold throughout, Nothing else, whether slim or stout. Should ever support her, God willing ! She must — she could — she would have her whim, Her father, she turn'd a deaf ear to him — He might kill her — she didn't mind killing ! He was welcome to cut off her other limb — He might cut her all off with a shilling ! cxiv All other promised gifts were in vain. Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain, She writhed with impatience more than pain, And utter'd " pshaws ! " and " pishes ! " But a Leg of Gold as she lay in bed, It danced before her — it ran in her head 1 It jumped with her dearest wishes ! cxv " Gold— gold— gold ! Oh, let it be gold ! " Asleep or awake that tale she told^ And when she grew delirious : Till her parents resolved to grant her wish. If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish, The case was getting so serious. cxvi \ So a Leg was made in a comely mould. Of gold, fine virgin glittering gold, As solid as man could make it — Solid in foot, and calf, and shank, A prodigious sum of money it sank ; In fact 'twas a Branch of the family Bank, And no easy matter to break it. AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 223 CXVII All sterling metal — not half-and-half, The Goldsmith's mark was stamp'd on the calf- 'Twas pure as from Mexican barter ! And to make it more costly, just over the knee, Where another ligature used to be, Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see, A new-fangled Badge of the Garter ! CXVIII 'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg, Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg, That Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg ! For, thanks to parental bounty, Secure from Mortification's touch, She stood on a Member that cost as much As a Member for all the County ! ?^er Jame cxix To gratify stem ambition's whims, What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs On a field of battle we scatter ! Sever'd by sword, or bullet, or saw. Off they go, all bleeding and raw, — But the public seems to get the lock-jaw, So little is said on the matter ! cxx Legs, the tightest that ever were seen. The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green, Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover ; Shattered, scatter'd, cut, and bowl'd down, Off they go, worse off for renown, A line in the Times, or a talk about town, Than the leg that a fly runs over ! 224 MISS KILMANSEGG CXXI But the Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg, Tliat gowden, goolden, golden leg, "Was the tlicnie of all conversation ! Had it been a Pillar of Church and State, Or a i)rop to support the whole Dead Weight, It could not have furnish 'd more debate To the heads and tails of the nation ! CXXII East and west, and north and south, Though useless for either hunger or drouth, — The Leg was in everybody's mouth. To use a poetical figure, Rumour, in taking her ravenous swim. Saw, and seized on the tempting limb, Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. CXXIII Wilful murder fell very dead ; Debates in the House were hardly read ; In vain the Police Reports were fed With Irish riots and rumjmses — The Leg ! the Leg ! was the great event. Through every circle in life it went, ., Jjike the leg of a pair of compasses. cxxiv The last new Novel seem'd tame and flat. The Leg, a novelty newer than that, Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction !' It IJurkod the very essays of Burke, And, alas ! how Wealth over Wit i)lays the Turk ! -tVs a regular ]>ieco of goldsmith's work, Got the better of Goldsmith's diction. AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 225 CXXV " A leg of gold ! what, of solid gold 1 " Cried rich and poor, and young and old, — And Master and Miss and Madam — 'Tvvas the talk of 'Change — the Alley — the Bank- And with men of scientific rank. It made as much stir as the fossil shank Of a Lizard coeval with Adam ! cxxvi Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves, Men who had lost a limb themselves. Its interest did not dwindle — But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and Tom Could hardly have spun more yarns therefrom, If the leg had been a spindle. CXXVII Meanwhile the story went to and fro. Till, gathering like the ball of snow. By the time it got to Stratfprd-le-Bow, Through Exaggeration's touches, The Heiress and Hope of the Kilmanseggs Was propp'd on two fine Golden Legs, And a pair of Golden Crutches ! CXXVIII Never had Leg so great a run ! 'Twas the " go " and the " Kick " thrown into one ! The mode — the new thing under the sun, The rage — the fancy — the passion ! Bonnets were named, and hats were worn, A la Golden Leg instead of Leghorn, And stockings and shoes. Of golden hues, Took the lead in the walks of fashion ! Q 226 MISS KTLMANSEGG CXXIX The Golden Leg had a vast career, It was sung and danced — and to show how near Low Folly to lofty approaches, Down to society^s very dregs, The Belles of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs," And St. Giles's Beaux sported Golden Legs In tlieir pinchbeck pins and brooches ! |i|et JFirgt S>tep cxxx Supposing the Trunk and Limbs of Man Shared, on the allegorical plan, By the Passions that mark Humanity, Whichever might claim the head, or heart. The stomach, or any other part. The Legs would be seized by Vanity. CXXXI There's Bardus, a six-foot column of fop, A liglithouse without any light atop. Whose height would attract beholders. If he had not lost some inches clear By looking down at his kerseymere. Ogling the limbs he holds so dear. Till he got a stoop in his shoulders. CXXXII Talk of Art, of Science, or Books, And down go the everlasting looks. To his crural beauties so wedded ! Try him, wherever you will, you find His mind in his legs, and his legs in Lib mind. All prongs and folly — in short a kind Of fork — that is Fiddle-headed. AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 227 CXXXIII What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg, With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, Fit for the court of Scander-Beg, Disdained to hide it like Joan or Meg, In petticoats stuff d or quilted 1 Not she ! 'twas her convalescent whim To dazzle the world with her precious limb,- Nay, to go a little high-kilted. cxxxrv So cards were sent for that sort of mob Where Tartars and Africans hob-and-nob, • 'H And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob To Polish or Lapland lovers — Cards like that hieroglyphical call To a geographical Fancy Ball On the recent Post-OflBce covers. cxxxv For if Lion-hunters — and great ones too — Would mob a savage from Latakoo, Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo, That unfortunate Sandwich scion — Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt. Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout That promised a Golden Lion ! 228 MISS KILMANSEGG fljet Janes '^all CXXXVI Of all the spirits of evil fame, That hurt the soul or injure the frame, And poison what's honest and hearty, There's none more needs a Mathew to preacli A cooling, antiphlogistic speech, To praise and enforce A temperate course, Than the Evil Spirit of Party. CXXXVII Go to the House of Commons, or Lords, And they seem to be busy with simple wokIs In their popular sense or pedantic — But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers. They're really busy, whatever appears. Putting peas in each other's ears, To drive their enemies frantic ! CXXXVIII Thus Tories like to worry the Whigs, Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs, Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs, With their writhing and pain delighted — But after all that's said, and more, The malice and spite of Party are poor To the malice and spite of a party next door, To a party not invited. CXXXIX On with the cap and out with the light, Weariness bids the world good night, At least for the usual season ; But hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ; And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels, Like Wilful Murder and Treason ! AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 229 CXL Another crash — and the carriage goes — Again poor Weariness seeks the repose That Nature demands, imperious ; But Echo takes up the burden now, With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow. Till Silence herself seems making a row, Like a Quaker gone delirious ! CXLI 'Tis night— a wmter night— and the stars Are shining like winkin' — Venus and Mars Are rolling along in their golden cars Through the sky's serene expansion — But vainly the stars dispense their rays, Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze Of the Kalmanseggs' luminous mansion ! CXLII Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright ! His bedchamber windows look so bright, — With light all the Square is glutted ! Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan. And a tremor sickens his inward man, For he feels as only a gentleman can. Who thinks he's being " gutted." CXUII Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ; But only to dream of a dreadful storm From Autumn's sulphurous locker ; But the only electrical body that falls Wears a negative coat, and positive smalls. And draws the peal that so appals From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker ! 230 MISS KILMANSEGG CXLIV 'Tis Curiosity's Benefit night — And perchance 'tis the English Second-Sight, But whatever it be, so be it — As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg, As many more jMob rouny a Shocking and Barbarous Murder. CCCXII But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff, The Leg kept its situation : For legs are not to be taken off By a verbal amputation. And mortals when they take a whim. The greater the folly the stiffer the limb That stand upon it or by it — So the Countess, then Miss Kilniansegg, At her marriage refused to stir a peg. Till the Lawyers had fasten'd on her Leg As fast as the Law could tie it. CCCXIII Firmly then — and more firmly yet — With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat, The Proud One confronted the Cruel : And loud and bitter the quarrel arose, Fierce and merciless — one of those. With spoken daggers, and looks like blows, In all but the bloodshed a duel ! AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 273 CCCXIV Kash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong, Were the words that came from Weak and Strong, Till madden'd for desperate matters, Fierce as tigress escaped from her den. She flew to her desk — 'twas opened — and then, In the time it takes to try a pen. Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, Her Will was in fifty tatters ! cccxv But the Count, instead of cursesj wild. Only nodded his head and smiled, As if at the spleen of an angry child ; But the calm was deceitful and sinister ! A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea — For Hate in that moment had sworn to be The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, And that very night to administer ! cccxvi 'Tis a stern and startling thing to think How often mortality stands on the brink Of its grave without any misgiving : And yet in this slippery world of strife. In the stir of human bustle so rife. There are daily sounds to tell us that Life Is dying, and Death is living ! CCCXVII Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy, Bright as they are with hope and joy, How their souls would sadden instanter, T 274 MISS KILMANSEGG To remember that one of those wedding bells. Which ring so merrily through the dells, Is the same that knells Oiir last farewells. Only broken into a canter ! CCCXVIII But breath and blood set doom at nought — How little the wretched Countess thought, When at night she unloosed her sandal, That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth, And that Death, in the shape of a Death's Head Moth, Was fluttering round her candle ! cccxix As she look'd at her clock of or-molu, For the hours she had gone so wearily through At the end of a day of trial — How little she saw in her pride of prime The dart of Death in the Hand of Time — That hand which moved on the dial ! cccxx As she went with her taper up the stair, How little her swollen eye was aware That the Shadow which follow 'd was double ! Or when she closed her chamber door, It was shutting out, and for evermore, The world — and its worldly trouble. cccxxi Little she dreamt, as she laid aside Her jewels — after one glance of pride — They were solemn bequests to Vanity — Or when her robes she began to doff, That she stood so near to the putting off Of the flesh that clothes humanity. AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 275 CCCXXII And when she quenched the taper's light, How little she thought as the smoke took flight, That her day was done — and merged in a night Of dreams and duration uncertain — Or along with her own. That a Hand of Bone Was closing mortality's curtain 1 CCCXXIII But life is sweet, and mortality blind. And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind In concealing the day of sorrow ; And enough is the present tense of toil — For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil— And the mind flies back with a glad recoil From the debts not due till to-morrow. cccxxiv Wherefore else does the Spirit fly And bid its daily cares good-bye, Along with its daily clothing ? Just as the felon condemned to die — With a very natural loathing — Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes, From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes To a caper on sunny gleams and slopes, Instead of a dance upon nothing. cccxxv Thus, even thus, the Countess slept, While Death still nearer and nearer crept, Like the Thane who smote the sleeping — But her mind was busy with early joys. Her golden treasures and golden toys ; That flash'd a bright And golden light . . Under lids still red with ^mttK0'^^^^ ^'^^'^^'W- 276 MISS KILMANSEGG CCCXXVI The golden doll that she used to hug ! Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! Her godfather's golden presents ! The golden service she had at her meals, The golden watch, and chain, and seals, Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels. And her golden fishes and pheasants ! CCCXXVII The golden guineas in silken purse — And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage — And London streets that were paved with gold — And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old — With each golden thing To the golden ring At her own auriferous Marriage ! CCCXXVIII And still the golden light of the sun Through her golden dream appeared to run, Though the night, that roared without, was one To terrify seamen or gypsies — "While the moon, as if in malicious mirth. Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth. As though she enjoy'd the tempest's birth. In revenge of her old eclipses. cccxxix But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell, For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell That time had lately embittered — The Count, as once at her foot he knelt — That foot, which now he wanted to melt ! But — hush ! — 'twas a stir at her pillow she felt — And some object before her glitter'd. \ AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 277 CCCXXX Twas the Golden Leg ! — she knew its gleam ! And up she started and tried to scream, — But ev'n in the moment she started Down came the limb with a frightful smash, And, lost in the universal flash That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash. The Spark, calFd Vital, departed ! cccxxxi Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and cold. For gold she had lived, and she died for gold — By a golden weapon — not oaken ; In the morning they found her all alone — Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone — But her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone, And the " Golden Bowl was broken ! " CCCXXXII Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet — At the Golden Lion the Inquest met — Its foreman, a carver and gilder — And the Jury debated from twelve till three What the Verdict ought to be. And they brought it in as Felo de Se, " Because her own Leg had kilPd her ! " y 278 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG f^et iifiotal Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammered and roli'd ; Heavy to get, and light to hold ; Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold. Stolen, borrow'd, squandered, doled : Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old To the very verge of the churchyard mould ; Price of many a crime untold ; Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Gold : Good or bad a thousand-fold ! How widely its agencies vary — To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — As even its minted coins express. Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Blood v Man% I THE LEE SHORE 279 THE LEE SHORE Sleet ! and Hail ! and Thunder ! And ye Winds that rave, Till the sands thereunder Tinge the sullen wave — Winds, that like a Demon, Howl with horrid note Round the toiling Seaman, In his tossing boat — From his humble dwelling, On the shingly shore. Where the billows swelling. Keep such hollow roar — From that weeping Woman, Seeking with her cries Succour superhuman From the frowning skies — From the Urchin pining For his Father's knee — From the lattice shining — Drive him out to sea ! Let broad leagues dissever Him from yonder foam — Oh, God ! to think Man ever Comes too near his Home ! 280 SONNET SONNET The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs — The shades of former and of future years — Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate : — Heavens ! what a wilderness the earth appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date ! But no — a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And gladly turning from the world's annoy I gaze ujKjn a little radiant face. And bless, internally, the merry boy Who "makes a son-shine in a shady-place." THE ELM TREE THE ELM TREE A SKEAM IS THE WOODS TwAS in .1 shady Avenue, Where lofty Eiins abound — And from a Tree There came to me A Bad and solemn sound, Tiiat Bometimes murmur'd overhead. And sometimes underground. Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh. Amid the boughs to moan ; It mutter'd in the stem, and then The roots took up the tone ; As if beneath the dewy graBS The dead began to groan. No breeze there was to stir the leaves ; No boltB that tempests launch, To rend tliu trunk or rugged bark ; No giile to bend the braucb ; No quake of earth to heam "" " That stood so stiff ai ' '''' 282 THE ELM TREE No bird was preening up aloft, To mstle with its wing ; No squirrel, in its sport or fear, From bough to bough to spring The solid bole Had ne'er a hole To hide a living thing ! No scooping hollow cell to lodge A furtive beast or fowl. The martin, bat. Or forest cat That nightly loves to prowl. Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud The moping, snoring owl. But still the sound was in my ear, A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmur'd overhead, And sometimes underground — 'Twas in a shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound. hath the Dryad still a tongue In this ungenial clime ? Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice As in the classic prime — To make the forest voluble, As in the olden time ? The olden time is dead and gone ; Its years have filPd their sum — And e'en in Greece — her native Greece The Sylvan Nymph is dumb — From ash, and beech, and aged oak, No classic whisi)er8 come, THE ELM TREE 283 From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch, And fragrant Linden Trees ; No living sound E'er hovers round. Unless the vagrant breeze, The music of the merry bird. Or hum of busy bees. But busy bees forsake the Elm That bears no bloom aloft — The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush, The Blackbird in the croft ; And among the firs the brooding Dove, That else might murmur soft. Yet still I heard that solemn sound. And sad it was to boot. From ev'ry overhanging bough, And each minuter shoot ; From rugged trunk and mossy rind. And from the twisted root. From these, — a melancholy moan ; From those, — a dreary sigh ; As if the boughs were wintry bare, And wild winds sweeping by — Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud Was stedfast in the sky. No sign or touch of stining air Could either sense observe — The zephyr had not breath enough The thistle-down to swerve. Or force the filmy gossamers To take another curve. 284 THE ELM TREE In still and sileut slumber hush'd All Nature seem'd to be : From heaven above, or earth beneath, No whisper came to me — Except the solemn sound and sad From that Mysterious Tree ! A hollow, hollow, hollow sound, As is that dreamy roar When distant billows boil and bound Along a shingly shore — But the ocean brim was far aloof, A hundred miles or more. No murmur of the gusty sea. No tumult of the beach. However they may foam and fret, The bounded sense could reach — Methought the trees in mystic tongue Were talking each to each ! — Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales Of greenwood love or guilt, Of whisper'd vows Beneath their boughs ; Or blood obscurely spilt, Or of that near-hand Mansion House A Royal Tudor built. Perchance, of booty won or shared Beneath the starry cope — Or where the suicidal wretch Hung up the fatal rope ; Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, Insnared by Love and Hope. THE ELM TREE 285 Of graves, perchance, untimely scooped At midnight dark and dank — And what is underneath the sod Whereon the grass is rank — Of old intrigues, And privy leagues, Tradition leaves in blank. Of traitor lips that muttered plots — Of Kin who fought and fell — God knows the undiscovered schemes. The arts and acts of Hell, Perform'd long generations since, If trees had tongues to tell ! With wary eyes, and ears alert. As one who walks afraid, I wander'd down the dappled path Of mingled light and shade — How sweetly gleam'd that arch of blue Beyond the green arcade ! How cheerly shone the glimpse of Heaven Beyond that verdant aisle ! All overarched with lofty elms. That quenched the light, the while. As dim and chill As serves to fill Some old Cathedral pile ! And many a gnarled trunk was there. That ages long had stood. Till Time had wrought them into shapes Like Pan's fantastic brood ; Or still more foul and hideous forms That Pagans carve in wood ! 286 THE ELM TREE A crouching Satyr lurking here— And there a Goblin grim — As staring full of demon life As Gothic sculptor's whim — A marvel it had scarcely been To hear a voice from him ! Some whisper from that horrid mouth Of strange, unearthly tone ; Or wild infernal laugh, to chill One's marrow in the bone. But no it grins like rigid Death, And silent as a stone ! As silent as its fellows be, For all is mute with them — The branch that climbs the leafy roof- The rough and mossy stem — The crooked root, And tender shoot. Where hangs the dewy gem. One mystic Tree alone there is. Of sad and solemn sound — That sometimes murmurs overhead, And sometimes underground — In all that shady Avenue, Where lofty Elms abound. PART II The Scene is changed ! No green Arcade, No Trees all ranged a- row- But scattered like a beaten host, Dispersing to and fro ; With here and there a sylvan corse. That fell before the foe. THE ELM TREE 287 The Foe that down in yonder dell Pursues his daily toil ; As witness many a prostrate trunk, Bereft of leafy spoil, Hard by its wooden stump, whereon The adder loves to coil. Alone he works — his ringing blows Have banished bird and beast ; The Hind and Fawn have canter'd off A hundred yards at least ; And on the maple's lofty top The linnet's song has ceased. No eye his labour overlooks. Or when he takes his rest, Except the timid thrush that peeps Above her secret nest. Forbid by love to leave the young Beneath her speckled breast. The Woodman's heart is in his work, His axe is sharp and good : With sturdy arm and steady aim He smites the gaping wood ] From distant rocks His lusty knocks Re-echo many a rood. His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; The muscles serve him well ; His years have reach'd an extra span. The number none can tell ; But still his lifelong task has been The Timber Tree to fell. 288 THE ELM TREE Through Summer's parchiug sultriness, And Winter's freezing cold, From sapling youth To virile growth, And Age's rigid mould, His energetic axe hath rung Within that Forest old. Aloft, upon his poising steel The vivid sunbeams glance — About his head and round his feet The forest shadows dance ; And bounding from his russet coat The acorn drops askance. His face is like a Druid's face. With wrinkles furrow'd deep, And tann'd by scorching suns as brown As corn that's ripe to reap ; But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin. Is white as wool of sheep. His frame is like a giant's frame ; His legs are long and stark ; His arms like limbs of knotted yew ; His hands like rugged bark ; So lie felleth still With right good will. As if to build an Ark ! Oh ! well within Ilis fatal path The fearful Tree might quake Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, With aspen tremor shake ; Through trunk and root. And branch and shoot, A low complaining make ! THE ELM TREE 289 Oh ! well to Uim the Tree might breathe A sad and solema sound, A sigh that murmur'd overhead, And groans from underground ; As in that shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound ! But calm and mute the Maple stands, The Plane, the Ash, the Fir, The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, Without the least demur ; And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf Makes no imusual stir. The Pines — those old gigantic Pines, That writhe — recalling soon The famous Human Group that writhes With Snakes in wild festoon — In ramous wrestlings interlaced A Forest Laocoon — Like Titans of primeval girth By tortures overcome. Their brown enormous limbs they twine, Bedew'd with tears of gum — Fierce agonies that ought to yell. But, like the marble, dumb. Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands So like a man of sin. Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad To feel the Worm within — For all that gesture, so intense, It makes no sort of din ! u 290 THE ELM TREE An universal silence reigns In rugged bark or peel, Except that very tnink which rings Beneath the biting steel — Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe With unrelenting zeal ! No rustic song is on his tongue, No whistle on his lips ; But with a quiet thoughtfulness His trusty tool he grips, And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out The bright and flying chips. Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint He spreads the fatal gash ; Till, lo ! the remnant fibres rend. With harsh and sudden crash, And on the dull resounding turf The jarring branches lash ! Oh ! now the Forest Trees may sigh, The Ash, the Poplar tall. The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, The Aspens — one and all. With solemn groan And hollow moan Lament a comrade's fall ! A goodly Elm, of noble girth, That, thrice the human span — While on their variegated course The constant Seasons ran — Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt, Had stood erect as Man. THE ELM TREE 291 But now, like mortal Man himself, Struck down by hand of God, Or heathen Idol tumbled prone Beneath th' Eternars nod, In all its giant bulk and length It lies along the sod ! — Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve And make a common moan Around that patriarchal trunk So newly overthrown ; And with a murmur recognise A doom to be their own ! The Echo sleeps : the idle axe, A disregarded tool. Lies crushing with its passive weight The toad's reputed stool — The Woodman wipes his dewy brow Within the shadows cool. No Zephyr stirs : the ear may catch The smallest insect-hum ; But on the disappointed sense No mystic whispers come ; No tone of sylvan sympathy. The Forest Trees are dumb. No leafy noise, nor inward voice, No sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmurs overhead. And sometimes underground ; As in that shady Avenue, Where lofty Elms abound ! 292 THE ELM TREE PART III The deed is done : the Tree is low That stood so long and firm ; The Woodman and his axe are gone, His toil has found its term ; And where he wrought the speckled Thrush Securely hunts the worm. The Cony from the sandy bank Has run a rapid race, Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern, To seek the open space ; And on its haunches sits erect To clean its furry face. The dappled Fawn is close at hand. The Hind is browsing near, — And on the Larch's lowest bough The Ousel whistles clear ; But checks the note Within its throat. As choked with sudden fear ! With sudden fear her wormy quest The Thrush abruptly quits — Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern The startled Cony flits ; And on the Larch's lowest bough No more the Ousel sits. With sudden fear The dappled Deer Effect a swift escape ; But well might bolder creatures start, And fly, or stand agape, With rising hair, and curdled blood, To see so grim a Shape ! THE ELM TREE 293 The very sky turns pale above ; The earth grows dark beneath ; The human Terror thrills with cold And draws a shorter breath — An universal panic owns The dread approach of Death ! With silent pace, as shadows come, And dark as shadows be, The grisly Phantom takes his stand Beside the fallen Tree, And scans it with his gloomy eyes, And laughs with horrid glee — A dreary laugh and desolate. Where mirth is void and null, As hollow as its echo sounds Within the hollow skull — " Whoever laid this tree along, His hatchet was not dull ! "The human arm and human tool Have done their duty well ! But after sound of ringing axe Must sound the ringing knell ; When Elm or Oak Have felt the stroke, My turn it is to fell ! " No passive unregarded tree, A senseless thing of wood. Wherein the sluggish sap ascends To swell the vernal bud — But conscious, moving, breathing trunks That throb with living blood ! 294 THE EOC TREE ^ No forest Monarch yearly dad In mantle green or brown ; That unrecorded lives, and Mia By hand of rustic down — Bat Kings who don the pnr;^ robey And wear the jewelL'd crown. " Ah ! little recks the Ro3ral mind. Within his Banquet Hall, While tapers shine and Music breathes And Beauty leads the Ball, — He little recks the oaken plank Shall be his palace wall ! " Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer, The while his Falcon flies — Or on the blood-bedabbled turf The antler'd quarry dies — That in his own ancestral Park The narrow dwelling lies ! " But haughty Peer and mighty King One doom shall overwhelm ! The oaken cell Shall lodge him well Whose sceptre ruled a realm — While he, who never knew a home, Shall find it in the Elm ! " The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch, Who begs from door to door, And dies within the cressy ditch, Or on the barren moor, The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe That houseless man and poor ! THE ELM TREE 295 *' Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, . That lies so long and prone, With many a fallen acorn-cup, And mast, and firry cone — This rugged trunk shall hold its share Of mortal flesh and bone ! " A Miser hoarding heaps of gold. But pale with ague-fears — A Wife lamenting love's decay, With secret cruel tears. Distilling bitter, bitter drops From sweets of former years — " A Man within whose gloomy mind Oflfence had deeply sunk. Who out of fierce Kevenge's cup Hath madly, darkly drunk — Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep Within this very trunk ! " This massy trunk that lies along. And many more must fall — For the very knave Who digs the grave. The man who spreads the pall, And he who tolls the funeral bell, The Elm shall have them all ! " The tall abounding Elm that grows In hedgerows up and down ; In field and forest, copse and park. And in the peopled town. With colonies of noisy rooks That nestle on its crown. 296 THE ELM TREE " And well til' abounding Elm may grow In field and hedge so rife, In forest, copse, and wooded park, And 'mid the city's strife. For, every hour that passes by Shall end a human life ! " The Phantom ends : the shade is gone ; The sky is clear and bright ; On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree, There glows a ruddy light ; And bounding through the golden fern The Rabbit comes to bite. The Thrush's mate beside her sits And pipes a merry lay ; The Dove is in the evergreen ; And on the Larch's spray The Fly-bird flutters up and down, To catch its tiny prey. The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn Are coming up the glade ; Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing Is glad, and not afraid— But on my sadden'd spirit still The Shadow leaves a shade. A secret, vague, prophetic gloom. As though by certain mark I knew the fore-appointed Tree, Within whose rugged bark This warm and living frame shall find Its narrow house and dark. THE ELM TREE— LEAR 297 That mystic Tree which breathed to me A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmured overhead, And sometimes underground ; Within that shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound. LEAR A POOR old king, with sorrow for my crown, Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind- For pity, my own tears have made me blind That I might never see my children's frown ; And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown A folded fillet over my dark mind. So that unkindly speech may sound for kind — Albeit I know not. — I am childish grown — And have not gold to purchase wit withal — I that have once maintained most royal state — A very bankrupt now that may not call My child, my child — all beggar'd save in tears. Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate, Foolish — and blind — and overcome with years 1 298 SONNET SONNET My heart is sick with longing, tho* I fe^d On hope ; Time goes with such a heavy pace That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace, As if he slept — forgetting his old speed : For, as in sunshine only we can read The march of minutes on the dial's face, So in the shadows of this lonely place There is no love, and Time is dead indeed. But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart, Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies, It seems we only meet to tear apart. With aching hands and lingering of eyes. Alas, alas ! that we must learn hours' flight By the same light of love that makes them bright ! THE SONG OF THE SHIRT 299 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread — Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! In poverty, hunger, and dirt. And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the " Song of the Shirt." " Work ! work ! work ! While the cock is crowing aloof ! And work — work — work. Till the stars shine through the roof ! ^ It's Oh ! to be a slave Along with the barbar ous Turk , Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work ! " Work — work — work Till the brain begins to swim ; Work — work — work Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep. And sew them on in a dream ! 300 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT " Oh, Men, with Sisters dear ! ^ Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives ! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives ! Stitch — stitch — stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, S«wing at once, with a double thread, 1 A Shroud as well as a Shirt. *' But why do I talk of Death ? That Phantom of grisly bone, I hardly fear his terrible shape, _^It seems so like my own — It seems so like my own, J Because of the fasts I keep ; Oh, God ! that bread should be so dear. And flesh and blood so cheap ! *' Work — work — work ! My labour never flags ; And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, A crust of bread — and rags. That shattered roof — and this naked floor — A table — a broken chair — And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there ! " Work — work — work ! From weary chime to chime. Work — work — work — As prisoners work for crime ! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band, Till the heart is sick, and the brain bcnumb'd, As well as the weary hand. ( THE SONG OF THE SHITIT 301 " Work — work — work, In the dull December light, And work — work— work. When the weather is warm and bright — While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling As if to show me their sunny backs And twit me with the spring. " Oh ! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet, For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal ! " Oh ! but for one short hour ! A respite however brief 1 No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, But only time for Grief! A little weeping would ease my heart, But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread ! " With fingers weary and worn, ^ With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags. Plying her needle and thread — Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, — Would that its tone could reach the Kich !- She sang this " Song of the Shirt ! " 302 THE pauper's CHRISTMAS CAROL THE PAUPER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL Full of drink and full of meat, ' On our Saviour's natal day, Charity's perennial treat ; Thus I heard a Pauper say : — " Ought not I to dance and sing Thus supplied with famous cheer ? Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year. " After labour's long turmoil, Sorry fare and frequent fast, Two-and-fifty weeks of toil, Pudding- time is come at last ! But are raisins high or low, Flour and suet cheap or dear ? Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year. " Fed upon the coarsest fare Three hundred days and sixty-four, But for one on viands rare, Just as if I wasn't poor ! Ought not I to bless my stars, Warden, clerk, and overseer t Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year. THE pauper's CHRISTMAS CAROL 303 " Treated like a welcome guest, • One of Nature's social chain, Seated, tended on, and press'd — But when shall I be press'd again, Twice to pudding, thrice to beef, A dozen times to ale and beer ? Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year. " Come to-morrow how it will ; Diet scant and usage rough, Hunger once has had its fill. Thirst for once has had enough, But shall I ever dine again 1 Or see another feast appear ? Heigho ! I only know — Christmas comes but once a year ! " Frozen cares begin to melt, Hopes revive and spirits flow — Feeling as I have not felt Since a dozen months ago — Glad enough to sing a song — To-morrow shall I volunteer 1 Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year. " Bright and blessed is the time, Sorrows end and joys begin, While the bells with merry chime Ring the Day of Plenty in ! But the happy tide to hail. With a sigh or with a tear, Heigho ! I hardly know — Christmas comes but once a year ! " 304 THE HAUNTED HOUSE THE HAUNTED HOUSE A ROMANCE ' ' A jolly place, said lie, in days of old. But something ails it now : the sjiot is curst." Wordsworth. PART I Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural, and full of contradictions ; Yet others of our most romantic schemes Are something more than fictions. It might be only on enchanted ground ; It might be merely by a thought's expansion ; But, in the spirit or the flesh, I found An old deserted Mansion. A residence for woman, child, and man, A dwelling place, — and yet no habitation ; A House, — but under some prodigious ban Of excommunication. Unhinged the iron gates half open hung, Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters, That from its crumbled pedestal had flung One marble globe in splinters. No dog was at the threshold, great or small ; No pigeon on the roof — no household creature — No cat demurely dozing on the wall — Not one domestic feature. THE HAUNTED HOUSE 305 No human figure stirr'd, to go or come, No face looked forth from shut or open casement ; No chimney smoked — there was no sign of Home From parapet to basement. With shattered panes the grassy court was starr'd ; The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after; And thro' the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd With naked beam and rafter. O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear ; A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is Haunted ! The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed, Roses with thistles struggled for espial, And vagrant plants of parasitic breed Had overgrown the Dial. But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm, No heart was there to heed the hour's duration ; All times and tides were lost in one long term Of stagnant desolation. The wren had built within the Porch, she found Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough ; And on the lawn, — within its turfy mound, — The rabbit made his burrow. The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted thro' The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and vanish'd. But leisurely and bold, as if he knew His enemy was banish'd. The wary crow, — the pheasant from the woods — Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness, Close to the mansion, like domestic broods. Fed with a "shocking tameness." X 306 THE HAUNTED HOUSE The coot was swimming in the reedy pond, Beside the water-hen, so soon afErighted ; And in the weedy moat the heron, fond Of solitude, alighted. The moping heron, motionless and stiff. That on a stone, as silently and stilly. Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if To guard the water-lily. No sound was heard except, from far away, The ringing of the witwall's shrilly laughter, Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay, That Echo murmur'd after. But Echo never mock'd the human tongue ; Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon, A secret curse on that old Building hung. And its deserted Garden. The beds were all untouched by hand or tool ; No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel, Each walk as green as is the mantled pool. For want of human travel. The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach, Droop'd from the wall with which they used to grapple; And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach, Rotted the golden apple. But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground. The vagrant kept aloof, and daring Poacher ; In spite of gaps that thro' the fences round Invited the encroacher. For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is Haunted ! THE HAUNTED HOUSE 307 The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass ; The mould was purple with unheeded showers Of bloomy plums — a Wilderness it was Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers ! The marigold amidst the nettles blew. The gourd embraced the rose bush in its ramble. The thistle and the stock together grew. The holly-hock and bramble. The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced. The sturdy bur-dock choked its slender neighbour. The spicy pink. All tokens were efifaced Of human care and labour. The very yew Formality had trained To such a rigid pyramidal stature, For want of trimming had almost regained The raggedness of nature. The Fountain was a-dry — neglect and time Had marr'd the work of artisan and mason, And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime, Sprawl'd in the ruined bason. The Statue, fallen from its marble base, \ Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten, \ Lay like the Idol of some bygone race. Its name and rites forgotten. On ev'ry side the aspect Was the same. All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and savage : No hand or foot within the precinct came To rectify or ravage. For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is Haunted ! 308 THE HAUNTED HOUSE PART II 0, VERY gloomy is the House of Woe, Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling, With all the dark solemDities which show That Death is in the dwelling ! very, very dreary is the room Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles, But, smitten by the common stroke of doom, The Corpse lies on the trestles ! But House of Woe, and hearse, and sable pall, The narrow home of the departed mortal. Ne'er look'd so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall, With its deserted portal ! The centipede along the threshold crept. The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle, And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept. At every nook and angle. The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood, The emmets of the steps had old possession. And march'd in search of their diurnal food In undisturb'd procession. As undisturb'd as the prehensile cell Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue. For never foot upon that threshold fell. To enter or to issue. O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. The place is Haunted ! THE HAUNTED HOUSE 309 Howbeit, the door I push'd — or so I dream'd — Which slowly, slowly gaped, — the hinges creaking With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd That Time himself was speaking. But Time was dumb within that Mansion old, Or left his tale to the heraldic banners. That hung from the corroded walls, and told Of former men and manners : — Those tatter'd flags, that with the open'd door, Seem'd the old wave of battle to remember, While fallen fragments danced upon the floor, Like dead leaves in December. The startled bats flew out, — bird after bird, — The screech-owl overhead began to flutter. And seem'd to mock the cry that she had heard Some dying victim utter ! A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof. And up the stair, and further still and further. Till in some ringing chamber far aloof It ceased its tale of murther ! Meanwhile the rusty armour rattled round. The banner shuddered, and the ragged streamer ; All things the horrid tenor of the sound Acknowledged with a tremor. The antlers, where the helmet hung, and belt, Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches, Or as the stag had trembled when he felt The blood-hound at his haunches. The window jingled in its crumbled frame. And thro' its many gaps of destitution Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came, Like those of dissolution. 310 THE HAUNTED HOUSE The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball, Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic ; And nameless beetles ran along the wall In universal panic. The subtle spider, that from overhead Hung like a spy on human guilt and error, Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender thread Ran with a nimble terror. The very stains and fractures on the wall, Assuming features solemn and terrific. Hinted some Tragedy of that old Hall, Lock'd up in hieroglyphic. Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt, Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid, The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out So ominously vivid. Some key to that inscrutable appeal. Which made the very frame of Nature quiver ; And ev'ry thrilling nerve and fibre feel So ague-like a shiver. For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is Haunted ! If but a rat had lingered in the house, To lure the thought into a social channel ! But not a rat remain'd, or tiny mouse, To squeak behind the panel. Huge drops roU'd down the walls, as if they wept ; And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept On that damp hearth and chilly. THE HAUNTED HOUSE 311 For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there, Or glanced on coat of buflF or knightly metal ; The slug was crawling on the vacant chair, — The snail upon the settle. The floor was redolent of mould and must, The fungus in the rotten seams had quickened ; While on the oaken table coats of dust Perennially had thickened. No mark of leathern jack or metal can, No cup — no horn — no hospitable token, — All social ties between that board and Man Had long ago been broken. There was so foul a rumour in the air, The shadow of a Presence so atrocious ; No human creature could have feasted there, Even the most ferocious. For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. The place is Haunted ! PART III Tis hard for human actions to account, Whether from reason or from impulse only— But some internal prompting bade me mount The gloomy stairs and lonely. Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold, With odours as from bones and relics carnal, Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould, - The chapel vault, or charnel. 312 . THE HAUNTED HOUSE Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended, The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess How many feet ascended. The tempest with its spoils had drifted in, Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted, As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin. With leaves that rankly rotted. The air was thick — and in the upper gloom The bat — or something in its shape — was winging ; And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb. The Death's-Head moth was clinging. That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound Of all unholy ])resence, augurs truly ; And with a grim significance Hits round The taper burning bluely. Such omens in the place there seemM to be. At ev'ry crooked turn, or on the landing, Tlie straining eyeball was prepared to see Some Aj^parition standing. For over all there huni: a cloud of fear. A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whis|x»r in the ear. The place is Ilaunteil ! Yet no |K»rtentou3 Shape the sight amazed ; Each object plain, and tangible, and valid ; lUit from their tarnishM frames dark Figures gmsed. And Facvs sivctre-jvillid. Not men^ly with the mimic life that lies Within the i\nn|>as^ of Art s simulation : Thoir souls wore Wkini: thro* their painted eyes ^Yith awful sjKVulation, THE HAUNTED HOUSE 313 On ev'ry lip a speechless horror dwelt ; On ev'ry brow the burthen of affliction ; The old Ancestral Spirits knew and felt The House's malediction. Such earnest woe their features overcast, They might have stirred, or sigh'd, or wept, or spoken ; But, save the hollow moaning of the blast. The stillness was unbroken. No other sound or stir of life was there, Except my steps in solitary clamber, From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair, From chamber into chamber. Deserted rooms of luxury and state, That old magnificence had richly furnished With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, And carvings gilt and burnish'd. Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art With scripture history, or classic fable ; But all had faded, save one ragged part. Where Cain was slaying Abel. The silent waste of mildew and the moth Had marr'd the tissue with a partial ravage ; But undecaying frown'd upon the cloth Each feature stern and savage. The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ; Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and duller ; But still the BLOODY HAND shone strangely out With vehemence of colour ! The BLOODY HAND that with a lurid stain Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token. Projected from the casement's painted pane. Where all beside was broken, ni4 TITE HAr^'TED HOUSE The BLOODY HAND significant of crime. That glaring on the old heraldic banner. Had kept its crimson unimpaired by time, In such a wondrous manner ! O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. The place is Haunted ! The Death Watch ticked behind the paneM oak. Inexplicable tremors shook the arras, And echoes strange and mystical awoke. The fancy to embarrass. Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread, But thro' one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, The while some secret inspiration said, That Chamber is the Ghostly ! Across the door no gossamer festoon Swung pendulous — no web — no dusty fnuges. No silky chrysalis or white cocoon About its nooks and hinges. The spider shunn'd the interdicted room, The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banisb'd, And where the simbeam fell athwart the gloom The very midge had vanish'd. One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed, As if with awful aim direct and certain. To show the Bloody Hand in burning red Embroider'd on the curtain. And yet no gory stain was on the quilt — The pillow in its place had slowly rotted ; The floor alone retained the trace of guilt, Those boards obscurely spotted. THE HAUNTED HOUSE 315 Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence With mazy doubles to the grated casement — Oh what a tale they told of fear intense, Of horror and amazement ! What human creature in the dead of night Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance ? Had sought the door, the window in his flight, Striving for dear existence ? What shrieking Spirit in that bloody room Its mortal frame had violently quitted ? — Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom, A ghostly Shadow flitted. Across the sunbeam, and along the wall. But painted on the air so very dimly. It hardly veiPd the tapestry at all. Or portrait frowning grimly. O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. The place is Haunted ! 316 THE MARY THE MARY A SEA-SIDE SKETCH Lov'sT thou not, Alice, with the early tide To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast, And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, — Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast His net into the deep, which doth provide Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek And take its gracious boon thankful and meek ? The sea is bright with morning, — but the dark Seems still to linger on his broad black sail, For it is early hoisted, like a mark For the low sun to shoot at with his pale And level beams : All round the shadowy bark The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale Swells in her canvas, till the waters show The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow. Then look abaft — (for thou canst tmderstand That phrase) — and there he sitteth at the stern, Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand, The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd And honest countenance that he will turn To look upon us, with a quiet gaze — As we are passing on our several ways. THE MARY 317 So, some ten days ago, on such a morn, The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil Amongst the finny race : 'twas when the com Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toil Summoned all rustic hands to fill the horn Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep. His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard, His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored With fishes — fishes swam in all his dreams, And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams Groped into the deep dusk that fill'd the sky. For him to catch in meshes of his eye. For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart, And saw the future with a boy's brave thought. No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part In his bright visions — ay, before he caught His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart, And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd, But though one crop was marr'd, again he toil'd And sow'd his seed afresh. — Many foul blights Perish'd his hardwon gains — yet he had plann'd No schemes of too extravagant delights — No goodly houses on the Goodwin sand — But a small humble home, and loving nights, Such as his honest heart and earnest hand Might fairly purchase. Were these hopes too airy 1 Such as they were, they rested on thee, Mary. 318 THE MAEY She was the prize of many a toilsome year, And hardwon wa^«5. on the perilous sea — Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear Was shed for Lome, that lav berond the lee ; — She was pmreyor for his other dear Marv, and for the infant Tet to be Fruit of their married lores. These made him dote Upon the homely leanties of his boat, Whose pitch-b!ack hull rolFd darkly on the ware, Xo gayer than cne single stripe of blue Could make her swarthv sides. She seem'd a sIbtc. A negro among bzitats — that only knew Har^isLip and nigged toil — no pennons brave Flaunte^i ur*:-!! the mast — Init oft a few Dark .Iripping ja.?keis fl:i:ter d to the air. Elsizhs c! La:dih>>i and toilsome caie. A-: i when she venrure^i f.r the deep, she spread A tiwny s^ agair^: the s:;- bright sky, E>irk as a cl:-i that jrnmeys overhead — B:: the- tii^se tawi:v win::? were streteh'd to ftv A:r:ss the wiie sea d-eser: ::r the bread •-»: r.a'res ani mother? — maL.y an azixic>as eye r»wcl: :n her c: irse. and many a fervent prar'r Iiviked the HeaveiLs re pr:tcc: and spore. Where is she now \ The 5e?Tets of the deep Are 'lark ani hidden frrni the human ken : «.»nlv trie sea-b:ri saw the surses sweeo r^ver the c-ark of the devoted B*c, — Meanwhile a widow soce and orphans weem -Vn-i «irhs are heani from wejktherci»aten men, Ihirk sTinbamt men, un*.*- "th and ride and haiiy. While I :anger5 tily ask, " Waere is the Mary ! * THE lady's dream 319 THE LADY'S DREAM The lady lay in her bed, Her couch so warm and soft, But her sleep was restless and broken still ; For turning often and oft From side to side, she muttered and moaned, And toss'd her arms aloft. At last she startled up. And gazed on the vacant air, With a look of awe, as if she saw Some dreadful phantom there — And then in the pillow she buried her face From visions ill to bear. The very curtain shook. Her terror was so extreme ; And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt Kept a tremulous gleam ; And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried "Oh me ! that awful dream ! " That weary, weaiy walk. In the churchyard's dismal groimd ! And those horrible things, with shady wings. That came and flitted round, — Death, death, and nothing but death, In every sight and sound 1 320 THE lady's dream " And oh ! those maidens young, Who wrought in that dreaiy room, With figures drooping and spectres thin, And cheeks without a bloom ; — And the Voice that cried, * For the pomp of pride, We haste to an early tomb ! " * For the pomp and pleasure of Pride, We toil like Afric slaves, And only to earn a home at last, Where yonder cypress waves ; ' — And then they pointed — I never saw A ground so full of graves ! " And still the coflfins came, With their sorrowful trains and slow ; Coffin after coffin still, A sad and sickening show ; From grief exempt, I never had dreamt Of such a World of Woe ! " Of the hearts that daily break, Of the tears that hourly fall. Of the many, many troubles of life. That grieve this earthly ball — Disease and Hunger, and Pain, and Want, But now I dreamt of them all ! " For the blind and the cripple were there, And the babe that pined for bread, And the houseless man, and the widow poor Who begged — to bury the dead ; The naked, alas, that I might have clad, The famish'd I might have fed ! THE lady's dream 321 " The sorrow I might have sooth'd, And the unregarded tears; For many a thronging shape was there, From long-forgotten years, Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, Who raised my childish fears ! " Each pleading look, that long ago I scanned with a heedless eye, Each face was gazing as plainly there, As when I pass'd it by : Woe, woe for me if the past should be Thus present when I die ! " No need of sulphurous lake, No need of fiery coal, But only that crowd of human kind Who wanted pity and dole — In everlasting retrospect — Will wring my sinful soul ! " Alas ! I have walk'd through life Too heedless where I trod ; Nay, helping to trample my fellow- worm. And fill the burial sod — Forgetting that even the sparrow falls Not unmarked of God ! " I drank the richest draughts ; And ate whatever is good — Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, Supplied my hungry mood ; But I never remembered the wretched ones That starve for want of food ! 322 THE lady's dream " I dress'd as the noble dress, In cloth of silver and gold, With silk, and satin, and costly furs, In many an ample fold ; But I never remember'd the naked limbs That froze with winter's cold. " The wounds I might have heaPd ! The human sorrow and smart ! And yet it never was in my soul To play so ill a part : But evil is wrought by want of Thought, As well as want of Heart ! " She clasped her fervent hands. And the tears began to stream ; Large, and bitter, and fast they fell. Remorse was so extreme : And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame Would dream the Lady's Dream ! THE KEY 323 THE KEY A MOORISH ROMANCE " On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve the keys of their ancestors* houses in Spain ; to which country they still express the hopes of one day returning, and again planting the crescent on the ancient walls of the Alhambra." — Scott's Travels in Morocco and Algiers, " Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing ?" Sancho Panza. The Moor leans on his cushion, With the pipe between his lips ; And still at frequent intervals The sweet sherbet he sips ; But, spite of lulling vapour And the sober cooling cup, The spirit of the swarthy Moor Is fiercely kindling up ! One hand is on his pistol, On its ornamented stock. While his finger feels the trigger And is busy with the lock — The other seeks his ataghan, And clasps its jewelFd hilt — Oh ! much of gore in days of yore That crooked blade has spilt ! His brows are knit, his eyes of jet In vivid blackness roll, And gleam with fatal flashes Like the fire-damp of the coal ; His jaws are set, and through his teeth He draws a savage breath, As if about to raise the shout Of Victory or Death ! 324 THE KEY For why 1 the last Zebeck that came And moor'd within the Mole, Such tidings unto Tunis brought As stir his very soul — The cruel jar of civil war, The sad and stormy reign. That blackens like a thunder cloud Tlie sunny land of Spain ! No strife of glorious Chivalry, For honour's gain or loss, Nor yet that ancient rivalry, The Crescent with the Cross. No charge of gallant Paladins On Moslems stern and stanch ; But Christians shedding Christian blood Beneath the olive's branch ! A war of horrid parricide, And brother killing brother ; Yea, like to *' dogs and sons of dogs " That worry one another. But let them bite and tear and fight, The more the Kaffers slay. The sooner Hagar's swarming sons Shall make the land a prey ! The sooner shall the Moor behold Th' Alhambra's pile again ; And those who pined in Barbary Shall shout for joy in Spain — The sooner shall the Crescent wave On dear Granada's walls : And j)roud Mohammed Ali sit Within his father's halls ! THE KEY 325 " AUa-il-alla ! " tiger-like Up springs the swarthy Moor, And, with a wide and hasty stride, Steps o'er the marble floor ; Across the hall, till from the wall, Where such quaint patterns be, With eager hand he snatches down An old and massive Key ! A massive Key of curious shape, And dark with dirt and rust. And well three weary centuries The metal might encrust ! For since the King Boabdil fell Before the native stock, That ancient Key, so quaint to see, Hath never been in lock. Brought over by the Saracens Who fled across the main, A token of the secret hope Of going back again ; From race to race, from hand to hand, From house to house it pass'd ; will it ever, ever ope The Palace gate at last ? Three hundred years and fifty-two On post and wall it hung — Three hundred years and fifty-two A dream to old and young ; But now a brighter destiny The Prophet's will accords : The time is come to scour the rust. And lubricate the wards. 326 THE KEY For should the Moor with sword and lanoe At Algesiras land. Where is the bold Bernardo now Their progress to withstand f To Burgos should the Modem ocnne, Where is the noble Cid Five royal crowns to topple down As gallant Diaz did ) Hath Xeres any Pounder now, When other weapons fail, With club to thrash invaders rash, Like barley with a flail f Hath Seville any Perez still. To lay his clusters low. And ride with seven turbans green Around his saddle-bow ? No ! never more shall Europe see Such Heroes brave and bold, Such Valour, Faith, and Loyalty, As used to shiDC of old ! No longer to one battle cry United Spaniards run. And with their thronging spears uphold The Virgin and her Son ! From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay Internal discord dwells, And Barcelona bears the scars Of Spanish shot and shells. The fleets decline, the merchants pine For want of foreign trade ; And gold is scant ; and Alicante Is seal'd by strict blockade ! THE KEY 327 The loyal fly, and Valour falls, Opposed by court intrigue ; But treachery and traitors thrive, Upheld by foreign league ; While factions seeking private ends By turns usurping reign — Well may the dreaming, scheming Moor Exulting point to Spain ! Well may he cleanse the rusty Key With Afric sand and oil. And hope an Andalusian home Shall recompense the toil ! Well may he swear the Moorish spear Through wild Castile shall sweep. And where the Catalonian sowed The Saracen shall reap! Well may he vow to spurn the Cross Beneath the Arab hoof. And plant the Crescent yet again Above th' Alhambra's roof — When those from whom St. Jago's name In chorus once arose, Are shouting Faction's battle-cries. And Spain forgets to " Close ! " Well may he swear his ataghan Shall rout the traitor swarm, And carve them into Arabesques That show no human form — The blame be theirs whose bloody feuds Invite the savage Moor, And tempt him with the ancient Key To seek the ancient door ! 328 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK AN ALLEGORY There's a murmur in the air, And noise in every street — The murmur of many tongues, The noise of numerous feet — While round the Workhouse door The Labouring Classes flock, For why ? the Overseer of the Poor Is setting the Workhouse Clock. Who does not hear the tramp Of thousands speeding along Of either sex and various stamp. Sickly, crippled, or strong. Walking, limping, creeping From court, and alley, and lane, But all in one direction sweeping Like rivers that seek the main ? Who does not see them sally From mill, and garret, and room, In lane, and court and alley. From homes in poverty's lowest valley, Furnished with shuttle and loom — Poor slaves of Civilization's galley — And in the road and footways rally. As if for the Day of Doom ? Some, of hardly human form. Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil ; Dingy with smoke and dust and oil. And smirch'd besides with vicious soil, Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK 329 Father, mother, and careful child, LookiDg as if it had never smiled — The Sempstress, lean, and weary, and wan. With only the ghosts of garments on — The Weaver, her sallow neighbour. The grim and sooty Artisan ; Every soul — child, woman, or man. Who lives — or dies — by labour. Stirr'd by an overwhelming zeal. And social impulse, a terrible throng ! Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel. Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel. Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel — Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal — Gushing, rushing, crushing along, A very torrent of Man ! Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong. Grown at last to a hurricane strong. Stop its course who can ! Stop who can its onward course And irresistible moral force ; vain and idle dream ! For surely as men are all akin, Whether of fair or sable skin. According to Nature's scheme. That Human Movement contains within \ A Blood-Power stronger than Steam. Onward, onward, with hasty feet, They swarm — and westward still — Masses born to drink and eat, But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat. And famishing down Cornhill ! Through the Poultry — but still unfed — Christian Charity, hang your head ! Hungry- passing the Street of Bread ; 330 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK Thirsty— the street of Milk ; Ragged — beside the Ludgate Mart, So gorgeous, through Mechanic- Art, With cotton, and wool, and silk ! At last, before that door That bears so many a knock Ere ever it opens to Sick or PotJfJ' Like sheep they huddle and flock — And would that all the Good and Wise ~^ Could see the Million of hollow eyes. With a gleam deriv'd from Hope and the skies, Upturned to the Workhouse Clock ! Oh that the Parish Powers, Who regulate Labour's hours, The daily amount of human trial, Weariness, pain, and self-denial. Would turn from the artificial dial That striketh ten or eleven, And go, for once, by that older one -y That stands in the light of Nature's sun, ; And takes its time from Heaven ! THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 331 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS ** Drown'd ! drown'd ! *'— Hamlet. One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death ! Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care ; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair ! ^' Look at her garments * ** V Clinging like cerements ; V^ Whilst the wave constantly y Drips from her clothing ; Take her up instantly, Loying, not loathing. — Touch her not scornfully ; Think of her mournfully, ^' Gently and humanly ; Not of the stains of her. All that remains of her *^ . . . Now is pure womanly: — ^ ' ' /^ v, • ,-^1 .. -»- y ■■'*- - '*■ ;■ ' \ ' ' "* 7 -, 4 4*- . ►v < . ,■ It TiiK nuiiHiK i)\f MKiiiM :v.\:\ SiHtcrly, ljn»t,li<5rly, Fatherly, maiiib'« lines "On an Infant dying at soon m l>orn," writt<;n on the death of Hood's first child, "The Dream of Kugene Aram" was suliscquently published in separate form, witli Illustrations by William Harvey, aud dedicated to John Hamilton ]<4;ynolds. It was then funiished with the Preface, ^ven below, and with the Defence, suppOKed to have lieen delivered by the criminal on hin trial. Tlie Vrtf'dttfi is as follows : — "The remarkable name of Eugene Aram, }>6longing to a man of unusual talents and acquirements, is unhappily associ- ateed ignominious for ever with the brand of Cain. To obtain a trilling proy^^rty he conf;ert'id with an &i'jiQmiMWf and with his own hand effected the violent death of one Daniel Clarke, a shoemaker, of Knaresl>ear a striking example of the divine justice even amongst thowj njarvels narraU;d in that curioua old volume alluded to in the F(/rtu'iiAn of Nnjd^ under its quaint title of * Cod's Revenge against Murther.' "The accidental digging \\\i of a skelcUjn, and the unwary and emphatic declaration of Aram's accompli<« tliat it could not be that of Clarke, }><;traying a guilty knowlwlge of the true iKjnes, he was wrought to a w^nfession of their de[>o«it. The learned homicide was sei/^d and arraigned, and a trial of un- cmimon interest was wound up by a defence aa niemoralde aa the tragijfly itself for ehxjuence and ingenuity — too iogenioua for inn'>cenfx;, and eloquent enough Ui do credit even to that long preme^litation which the interval lK;tween the. deed and its dis<:overy ha'l afforde«i 'Hiat this dreary perioassed without paroxysms of remorse may Ije inferred from a fa^rt of affecting int*jrest. The laUi Admiral Kurney waa a scholar at the school at Lynn in Norfolk when Aram waa an usher, subhequent to bis crime. The Admiral stated that Aram was l>':loved by the Ij^^ys, and that he used to discourse to them of murder, not oem. "For the more imaginative |»art of the version I moat refer liack to one of thos«.' unaccountable virions which come uiion na like frightful monsters thrown up by stonna from the gr^t NOTES 345 black deeps of slumber. A lifeless body, in love and relation- ship the nearest and dearest, was imposed upon my back, with an overwhelming sense of obligation — not of filial piety merely, but some awful responsibility, equally vague and intense, and involving, as it seemed, inexpiable sin, horrors unutterable, torments intolerable — to bury my dead, like Abraham, out of my sight. In vain I attempted, again and again, to obey the mysterious mandate — by some dreadful process the burthen was replaced with a more stupendous weight of injunction, and an appalling conviction of the impossibility of its fulfilment. My mental anguish was indescribable ; — the mighty agonies of souls tortured on the supernatural racks of sleep are not to be penned — and if in sketching those that belong to blood-guilti- ness I have been at all successful, I owe it mainly to the un- invoked inspiration of that terrible dream." The introduction of Admiral Bumey's name makes it likely that Hood may have owed his first interest in the story to Charles Lamb. The circumstance that the book over which the gentle boy was poring when questioned by the usher was called the Death of Abel, is by no means forced or unnatural. Salomon Gessner's prose poem, Der Tod Abels, published in 1758, attained an astonishing popularity throughout Europe, and appeared in an English version somewhere about the time of the discovery of Aram's crime. Sonnet for the 14th of February (p. 167). — Forget-me-not for 1830. The Death -Bed (p. 168). — The Fnglishman's Magazine, August 1831. This magazine was a venture of Edward Moxon, the publisher, but had a career of only seven months. It is memorable, however, for including, besides the above and various papers by Charles Lamb, poetical contributions from Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, and also for containing the review by the latter of Tennyson's first volume of poems, published in 1830. The beautiful stanzas of Hood's appear here, as far as I have discovered, for the first time. The date of their composition remains unfixed. Hood's son was under the impression that they were written on the death of one of his father's sisters, but supplied no evidence bearing on the question. Anticipation (p. 169). — Englishman's Magazine, September 1831. These impressive, if rather morbid, lines seem to have been hitherto overlooked by Hood's editors, and are here col- lected for the first time. To a Child embraci7ig his Mother (p. 171). — Printed in the AtheTUBum in 1832. 346 NOTES Stanzas (p. 172). — From Hood's novel of Tyhijcy Hall, published in 1834 ; apparently one of the many tender tributes originally addressed by Hood to his wife. Sonnet to Ocean (p. 172). — Written in 1836 after Hood's disastrous voyage to Rotterdam, in which the ship was nearly lost, and Hood's health was permanently affected. To . Composed at Rotterdam (p. 173). — ^These stanzas, addressed to Mrs. Hood, appeared first in the AtJienoeum in March 1835. Lines {on seeing my wife and two children sleeping in the same charkber) (p. 175). — Written at Coblenz, where Hood and his family were then settled, in November 1835. Lines: " Is there a bitter pang for love removed" (p. 176). — Assigned by Hood's son to the year 1836, but apparently only on conjecture. Ode to Roe Wilson (p. 177). — In my Prefatory Memoir I have related the origin of this famous jeu d'esprU^ with some account of the person to whom it is addressed. Mr. Rae Wilson has survived in literary history chiefly through Hood's ode. It was first printed in the Athenceum in March 1837. To my Daughter (p. 193). — Written at Ostend in September 1839. Miss KilTnuinsegg (p. 194). — Originally published by instal- ments in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine in 1840 and 1841, as one of a proposed series to be entitled *' Rhymes for the Times." The Lee Shore (p. 279). — This and the three following poems belong to the year 1842. The Song of the Shirt (p. 299). — Christmas number of Punch, 1843. See Prefatory Memoir, and further particulars in Mr. Spielmaun's excellent and exhaustive History of Punch, The Pauper's Christmas Carol (p. 302). — From the same number of Punch in 1843. It was naturally overshadowed by its more remarkable companion. The Haunted House (p. 304). — From the opening number of Hood^s Magazine, January 1844. Written to accompany an engraving from a painting by Thomas Creswick, bearing the same title. All the remaining poems appeared in Hood! a Magazine daring the year 1844. That entitled The Mary had the initial "B*' appended to it on its appearance in the Magazine, perhaps purposely to disguise the authorship. Hood naving nimself NOTES 347 contributed so large a part besides of the number in question. For internal evidence points to its being Hood's, ana notably the introduction of the name of Tom Woodgate, the Hastings boatman, to whom Hood, as well as Charles Lamb, was so devoted. Stcmzas (p. 339). — Hood's last verses. They appeared in his Magazine in February 1845, and were thus probably com- posed during the previous month. In the original collection of Hood's serious poems, published after his death, they were wrongly assigned to the April of this year. Hood died on the third of May. INDEX TO POEMS Anticipation, 169 A Retrospective Review, 71 Autumn, 64 Autumn, 150 Ballad. It was not in the Winter, 75 Ballad. She's up and gone, 78 Ballad. Spring it is cheery, 149 Ballad. Sigh ou, sad heart, 150 Birthday Verses, 43 Fair Ines, 32 False Poets and True. To Wordsworth, 45 Flowers, 77 Hero and Leander, 122 Hymn to the Sun, 29 I love Thee, 44 I remember, 1 remember, 65 Lear, 297 Lines, 45 Lines, on seeing my wife and two children sleeping in the same chamber, 175 Lycus the Centaur. From an Unrolled Manuscript of ApoUonius Curius, 10 Midnight, 80 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg. A Golden Legend, 194 Ode. Autumn, 34 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy, 57 Ode to Melancholy, 154 Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq., 177 Ode to the Moon, 67 350 INDEX TO POEMS Ruth, 79 Serenade. Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how, 39 Song. The stars are with the voyager, 41 Song. Lady, leave thy silken thread, 42 Song. There is dew for the flow'ret, 62 Sonnet. Silence, 36 Sonnet. Written in Keats's "Endymion," 36 Sonnet. To an Enthusiast, 37 Sonnet. Death, 38 Sonnet. Written in a Volume of Shakspeare, 70 Sonnet. By every sweet tradition, 158 Sonnet. To my Wife, 158 Sonnet. On receiving a Gift, 159 Sonnet. Love, dearest Lady, 159 Sonnet. For the 14th of February, 167 Sonnet to Ocean, 172 Sonnet. The world is with me, 280 Sonnet. My heart is sick with longing, 298 Stanzas. Is there a bitter pang, 176 Stanzas. Farewell, Life, 339 Stanzas. From Tylney HaU^ 172 The Bridge of Sighs, 331 The Death-bed, 168 The Departure of Summer, 3 The Dream of Eugene Aram, 160 The Elm Tree. A Dream in the Woods, Part I., 281 ,, ,, * ,, Part IL, 286 The Exile, 152 The Forsaken, 40 The Haunted House. A Romance, Part I., 304 „ ,, ,, Part II., 308 Part III., 311 The Key. A Moorish Romance, 323 The Lady's Dream, 319 The Lay of the Labourer, 335 The Lee Shore, 279 The Mary. A Sea-side Sketch, 316 The Pauper's Christmas Carol, 302 The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, 80 The Poet's Portion, 66 The Sea of Death. A Fragment, 7 The Song of the Shirt, 299 The Two Peacocks of Bedfont, 22 The Two Swans. A Fairy Tale, 46 The Water Lady, 63 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 355 le stars are with the voyager, 41 le swallow with summer, 152 le world is with me, and its many cares, 280 line eyelids slept so beanteoosly, I deem'd, 31 ) trace the Kilmanse^ pedigree, 194 'was in a shady Avenne, 281 Vas in that mellow season of the year, 80 "was in the prime of summer time, 160 nfathomable Night ! how dost thou sweep, 30 elcome, dear Heart, and a most kind good-morrow, 1 53 e watch'd her breathing through the night 1 68 Tiat is mine — a treasury — a tlower, 66 lio hath ever been lured and bound by a spell. 10 ith fingers weary and worn, 299 )ung ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, 37 END OF VOL. I P-nntedhf R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. ; 7 INDEX TO POEMS 351 The Workhouse Clock. An Allegory, 328 Time, Hope, and Memory, 76 To , 163 To a Child embracing his Mother, 171 To a Cold Beauty, 37 To a False Friend, 33 To an Absentee, 9 To a Sleeping Child, I., ^30 ,, „ II., 31 To . Composed at Rotterdam, 173 To Fancy, 31 To Hope, 1 To my Daughter, on her Birthday, 193 To S. T. Coleridge. The dedication of Hero and Leander, 122 Verses in an Album, 39 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Ah me ! those old familiar bounds, 67 Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how, 39 Alas ! That breathing Vanity should go, 22 Alas, the moon should ever beam, 63 And has the earth lost its so spacious round, 175 A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown, 297 A spade ! a rake ! a hoe, 335 A wanderer, Wilson, from my native land, 178 By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts, 158 Come, let us set our careful breasts, 154 Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago, 193 Far above the hollow, 39 Farewell, Life ! My senses swim, 339 Full of drink and full of meat, 302 Giver of glowing light, 29 Good- morrow to the golden morning, 43 How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky, 70 I gaze upon a city, 173 I had a vision in the summer light, 169 I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring, 76 I love thee — I love thee, 44 Immortal Imogen, crown'd queen above, 46 I remember, I remember, 65 I saw old Autumn in the misty mom, 34 I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink, 36 Is there a bitter pang for love removed, 176 It is not death, that sometime in a sigh, 38 2 A 354 INT)EX OF FIBST UNES It Is not with a hope my fwble ynise, 122 It wAa tot in the Winter. 75 I will not Lave the eljuI Clvtie. 77 lAly. woTil'lst tho'i heiress be, 37 Let 'J.S n^ake a Irap. !:.y iti, Qcear. shines abore, 159 I»:k how the I irk aoars upwari ar.-! is gone. 45 I/3Vr. dearest Ia»:T. suoh a^ I woul-i >peak. 159 l/>ve thy EL'jthrrr. littlr: onr, 171 Lov'-t thou L.-u Ali.e, with thr: early tiie, 316 Metho'sgbt I saw, 7 Mcrft 'lelioate Ariel ! A^^'Miii-s-ive thing. 31 Mother of li/iit ! Low fairly 'i/>>t thou gr., 67 Mv heart Is '-i-.k u-ith lonzinir, tho' I fee-i. 29S Xo ijop^Jar respect will I oi:;:t, 167 OVr hill, an'l '^iale, anil lii^tant sea, 9 Oh Bar Li •.! oli ! what :^'jrr:wi have ve -nnz, 122 Oh I take, yo-mg S»rrapf.- take thy hiri*. 1 Oh, 'tis a t'j'.: ihicg thiLt'. to i;.ak»: one w^ep. CO Oh, when I vii- a t::.y roy. 71 O la/ly. Iravc thy -jilke:. threa»L 42 One more Ur.forf.inatc, 3:31 O saw Ve not luir Ine-, 32 <>*;r hanl' hiv-r ri.rrt, but not our heart.^ 33 .Shall I re'rj'ike thee, l bfr-jL-it h:/:i arail the ':om, '*.* r^he'" \i\t an»i u'or.e. the ffra SisTh o:.. -^aii heart. :->r Ixve'n e«.!:{ -«*-, 150 Sleet : and Hail : a:. 1 T:.:n.:.:r. '^79 .Some -ireama we h-iv-- art nothing eUe brit dreams. 304 Spring it U cheery. 1 49 Still glides the gentle ^:reamlet on, 1 72 S i.'aiiier is gone on swallow** w ings 3 The Autumn Is oM, 64 The Aufimn skles are riu-sh'd with gold. l.'iO The cur»e of Adam, the old canse of all, l.'iS T\m dead are in their -ilent eiave>, 40 T}.e !a.Iy lay in her l^L 319 T:*e Moor le.-m^ on hi" i.t^hion, 323 There is a -ilen-.e wh»-re hath Ij^r^i. no soun*!, 30 Tli-r»: i-i lie'*' tor the tlow'ret, 62 There's a n.:;r;:iur in the air, 32 S THE UNJVERSITY OF MICHIGAN